Julia Ducournau B2B - Titane (2021) and Raw (2016)

Julia Ducournau B2B - Titane (2021) and Raw (2017)

Raw 

Writer: Julia Ducournau

Release Date: 15th March 2017

Hot Rating: 💥💥💥💥

Ducournau’s debut feature is a wonderful piece of body horror. Through the growing compulsions of the protagonist, a first-year veterinarian student named Justine -- namely, her desire to consume human flesh - the director explores issues surrounding female adolescence and isolation. The film harks back to the French horror tradition in which the human body (often female) becomes a battlefield of agency. It is also an anthropological study examining what drives human obsession and the ways in which conservative values suppress feminine urges. The medical school, where Justine suffers cruel initiation rituals by her classmates, serves as a good backdrop to this story. 'Banter' and intensely sexual parties that occur are nothing more than fronts for students to exercise their dark, often immoral behavior. In this vein, Ducournau's greatest achievement is to make Juliet seem like a sympathetic figure whose own vices are shown to be more honest than her peers. 

Image: YouTube

Titane

Writer: Julia Ducournau

Release Date: 31st December 2021

Hot Rating: 💥💥💥

Julia Ducournau’s Titane is a film that wants to be loved. Adrien (Agathe Rousselle) carries the trauma of a childhood car accident in the form of a titanium plate in her skull. Her present-day job as a dancer — where she thrusts on muscle cars for gawking audience members — keeps her connected to these vehicles. After a series of chaotic events, Adrien’s life becomes intertwined with Vincent, a firefighter who grieves for his missing son. While Ducournau invites us to sympathise with these misfits and their wellbeing, the film struggles to convey these events coherently. There are moments of sweetness, but they clash with the visceral aesthetics of the film and are lost within a swelling orchestra of machinery and moody lighting. Ducournau's commitment body transformations was evident from debut Raw, but whereas that picture gradually suspended disbelief, Titane races into the surreal, eventually crashing into a farcical finale.

Image: YouTube