It’s worth prefacing my thoughts on Titane by reminding readers that Julia Ducournau’s Raw was my favorite film of 2017. Darkly funny and completely uncompromising, that cannibal coming-of-age horror sunk its teeth in deep to unspool a surprisingly thematic story of sexual appetites, family politics, and genetic disposition. I loved every minute of Ducournau’s irreverent storytelling; her evident hunger to show up fully formed with her debut film, and her reveling in the national bloodlust that is the French New Extremity movement revealed a filmmaking talent of untold potential.

The French-language, Palme d’Or-winning Titane, though a starkly different film from Raw in nearly every capacity, then proves Ducournau’s brilliance. It’s a perfect counter piece to her 2017 effort, one that is arguably even more bold (a high bar, I know) and certainly more thematically elusive and provocative. This is a film destined to bewilder and incense many, but stows many narrative treasures indeed. Tempering a hunger for experimentation in with a commitment to the truly bizarre, Ducournau has crafted a genuinely thrilling body horror that defies expectation but never its own internal logic.

Named after a heat-resistant metal that doesn’t break under tremendous amounts of tension, Titane doesn’t fit into any box. It’s Eraserhead by way of Transformers. The Imposter by way of Clockwork Orange. There’s body horror flourishes tugged directly from the book of Cronenberg, a direct thematic rhyming scheme with David Lynch, and the not-so-secret nihilism of Bukowski tattooed squarely on the lead’s chest. An enthralling parable that can be read any great number of ways while remaining a fascinating watch from its very first electrifying minutes when a young girl is gravely injured in a car accident and must be fitted with a titanium plate in her skull.

That child grows into Adrien (Agathe Rousselle), a famous erotic dancer with a fixation for all things cars. Then things get weird.

Adrien is also a serial killer. The rare serial killer of the female persuasion. Her sociopathy drips from the screen and she wields her sexuality like an assassin’s blade. She’s taken at least four lives by the time we meet her, plunging her hair pin in through her victim’s ears to scramble their brains.

But when Adrien is caught in the act, she is forced to go on the lamb. Inspired by the computer-aged posters of scores of missing children, she pretends to be the long lost son of heartbroken fire chief Vincent (Vincent Lindon), shaving off her hair and smashing her nose to more closely fit his description. To her surprise, Vincent takes her in and proves a hawk-like paternal figure, impeding her plot to escape into the night. Adding to the difficulty, Adrien must also conceal the fact that she’s pregnant and showing more by the day. And the father is a vintage Cadillac.

Despite the many crude plot turns sure to shock and mystify audiences, Titane bears its share of tenderness, particularly in the growing bond between Vincent and Adrien.

Rousselle dazzles in the role. Between the rough sexual energy of the character, her raw-like-a-nerve misanthropy, and her sparse spoken dialogue, Adrien is a puzzle box of a character. This makes for an extremely demanding performance, one where everything is internalized, and still Rousselle and her physicality absolutely command the screen.

As Adrien softens, the genre-bending, gender-bending Titane opens up questions about identity and conditioning, begging interpretation through a psychological framework of nature versus nurture. Why are we the people we become? How is a murderer made – and can they be unmade? Is a little love and affection enough to unspool years of pent up rage?

Further, Titane proves a captivating meditation on the act of childbearing. While David Lynch grappled with the alien nature of parenthood in Eraserhead, Ducournau goes a step further, translating the experience through the eyes of an expecting mother. Just as Eraserhead dealt in crippling waves of anxiety and doubt, Titane is an invasion movie with Adrien undergoing a Kaftaesque metamorphosis at the indifferent, cold hands of her impregnator – and god.

Surely there’s a lot of disturbing accouterments and filmmaking flourish to throw off the scent of actual, legitimate, genuine fear that lays at the center of Titane. Ducournau bellies those maternal insecurities with her fair share of bloodletting and gonzo oddities (Adrien tearing at the seems as she swells, metal poking through beneath the flesh of her tummy) but the tangible terror remains. The baddest bitch on the planet – one who literally fucks cars – can be utterly, helplessly transformed with a dollop of crude baby oil.

If Titane’s anxieties are substantialized by Adrien’s impending rupturing and a desperate attempt to conceal herself, Vincent offers a calming counterweight (and Lindon is terrific in the role). His unwavering affection keeps both Adrien and himself alive – in more ways than one. He’s either convinced that Adrien is actually his son or he doesn’t care either way and is happy enough keeping up the facade. As Titane barrels towards a reckoning between these characters and the expectation of some variety of human-machine baby, the gruesome body dysmoprhia of it all gives way to a grand sense of the divine and the unforgiving beauty – and absolute horror – of womanhood and nature.

CONCLUSION: ‘Titane’ sees Julia Ducournau use expressive body horror and ostensibly insane plotting to explore the very-real transformative nature of childbearing. A startling and genuinely thrilling work of avant-garde brilliance.