[Editor’s note: The following post contains spoilers for “Titane.”]The fervor for Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” feels, at least in part, motivated by a kind of relieved elation that a female filmmaker is the new cause célèbre of a genre that has historically been dominated by men.
For many years, the highbrow “arthouse body horror” was seen as the purview of Lynch and Cronenberg, not Kusama or Kent.With just two films, the Palme d’Or winner “Titane” and her previous teen cannibal feature “Raw,” Ducournau has allowed those who enjoy the sick thrill of skillfully art-directed torture to rest somewhat easy, knowing the perverted gaze behind the camera was — refreshingly — not entirely male.
But in her rush to subvert this traditionally masculine genre, Ducournau has made a deeply misogynist movie with a healthy side of transphobia.
Even the most generous read of the film — as a violent refutation of the shackles of womanhood and a rallying cry
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