“Titane” Deconstructs Identity & The Human Form

Are our identities liberating or confining?

“Who defines the material of the body? Who gives it value- and why?”

The quote above is selected from the introduction of Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism, a manifesto about the exploration of identity through the digital world. Russel puts traits that are deemed dysfunctional into the context of a glitch in a system. Glitch Feminism was unlike anything I had read before, and since reading it, it remains far removed from anything else I have been exposed to. Until now.

Julia Ducournau’s body horror film, Titane, embraces the glitch, but does so through a slightly different lens than Russel’s manifesto. Rather than discussing the digital world, Ducournau explores how identity becomes malleable in a mechanical landscape. The movie follows two characters: Alexia, a dancer, and Vincent, a firefighter, and how they both explore their individual relationships with their body, gender, and sexuality.

Titane’s intriguing representation of masculinity and femininity can be summed up in this way: masculinity is warm, crackling flames and femininity is cool, smooth machinery. The characters desperately try to manipulate their bodies according to this binary: either embracing the traits or separating themselves from them. Alexia and Vincent both feel a disconnect as a result of this structure, and seek validity from the binary while being actively harmed by it. Constantly surveilled by this system, they continue to distort and damage themselves in hopes of some forgiveness. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that they need to discard this concept of validation. Why should they continue to seek comfort from the structure that subjugates them? They eventually combat the phenomenon with unconditional love, using appreciation as an act of rebellion against a system that feeds off of self-hatred.

“It doesn’t matter, it is only the body, [and] it will be over soon”.

- James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

OVERALL SCORE: 10/10

Titane was released on October 1, 2021 and is currently streaming on demand.