Written by Andreas Babiolakis

This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. Titane won the sixty fifth Palme d’Or at the 2021 festival (2020 was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Spike Lee.
Jury: Mati Diop, Mylène Farmer, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hausner, Mélanie Laurent, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Tahar Rahim, Song Kang-ho.

After Cannes had to pause for a year due to the pandemic that shut down the entire world, it was in need of the kind of film that could kick it back into high gear. Lo and behold, that was Titane: Julia Ducournau’s body horror triumph that will leave any viewer’s jaw dropped. I will mostly focus on Titane’s correlation with the Palme d’Or, as I have covered the film before here, but having about a year’s time to digest the film still isn’t enough. What I once felt in 2021 still rings true: Titane is a blistering picture that is bound to bring anyone to a stand still. Perhaps its most shocking element, in regards to Cannes, is when jury head Spike Lee misunderstood when to deliver the good news that the film won the Palme d’Or (he did so right at the start of the ceremony). On the other hand, such a revelation only felt fitting for a film as unforgettably intense as Titane.

It also is worth noting the other shocking side of this win: that Julia is only the second female director to ever win the Palme d’Or (fourth woman if you include Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux winning as actresses for Blue is the Warmest Colour: an honour that has never happened before or since). While Cannes is usually quite good with awarding the best of the best in the film industry, and other awards within the festival have acknowledged women in film, this still saddens me greatly. You mean to tell me that in the many years that Cannes has existed (in full effect since 1946), excluding the years that the festival didn’t run or that a winner wasn’t given, that only two female directors have been worthy of being called the best of the year. I’m sorry. I don’t buy it. I know a lot more goes into it like what films are submitted for consideration for the Palme d’Or, but this is still just crazy to me.

Still, Titane’s themes and presentation were seen at the right place and the right time, and the jury knew that this was not just a promising filmmaker, but a feature with a hell of a lot of relevancy to be witnessed. So many other Palme d’Or winners deal with topical subject matters, like political talking points, societal mutuality, and ongoing concerns: the aftermaths of war, the woes of being of the lower class, and sexuality being frowned upon by society (to name a few). The latter is especially prevalent in Titane in a completely new way: one’s identity. See, I considered Titane a very fitting Palme d’Or winner because of its uncompromising style, but really it stands out because of what it is tackling (transgender acceptance, sexual fluidity, and a person’s rights surrounding their own body). A lot of Palme d’Or winners feel similar thematically. Titane is a breakthrough for the festival.

Hopefully that means that a precedent will be set: more love for female filmmaking, and an expansion of the kinds of subjects and storytelling that can win the Palme d’Or (then again, not many other ceremonies will give a body horror as graphic as Titane the honour of being the best film of the pack). It took the Academy Awards even longer to award a woman Best Director in 2010 (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker), but the last couple of years have shown even more improvement (Chloé Zhao and Jane Campion would end up winning as well). This feels like Cannes’ opportunity to kick into that second wave of acceptance: the first win has happened, and now a subsequent one has occurred. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another close-to thirty years for another win for a female filmmaker.

At least Titane got the love that it got: it’s atypical for a film this driven by gore and surreal horror to be widely accepted by the awards-based masses (Ducournau even got a Best Director nomination from the BAFTAs): the Academy was unfortunately much colder, and didn’t even accept France’s bid for the film to be a Best International Feature Film selection. It’s unusual for a film this heavy and disturbing to make such a splash, but, then again, Titane speaks to many people, and is clearly affective for all viewers. It’s no wonder that Lee was in such a hurry to announce the winner of the Palme d’Or, even if he misunderstood what award he was supposed to reveal: Titane just feels like such a monumental feature to celebrate. Let’s just hope it isn’t an anomaly of a win (in multiple ways).

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.