The second director to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes dynamites the concepts of gender and sexuality in the ultraviolent ‘Titane’
At 37 years old and with only two films, Julia Ducournau has managed to blow up genre cinema with her own language, ultraviolent and gore, which turns concepts such as identity, gender and sexuality upside down. The second woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, 28 years after Jane Campion with ‘The Piano’, has turned everything upside down with ‘Titane’, the story of a serial killer who has been wearing a titanium plate since she was a child. her head and a steroid-doped firefighter, who adopts her believing she is the son he lost. The daughter of a Breton dermatologist and an Algerian and Berber gynecologist, Ducournau chatted with EL CORREO at the San Sebastian Festival.
–’Titane ‘contains harsh scenes of sexual violence.
-Alexia was a difficult character to write. She does not feel, she is very cold, and that is why we find it difficult to relate to her. I had to break the distance, so I decided to open the film with her so that the audience would understand why she uses that violence and how she connects with her humanity. I needed to understand its violence, and for that you had to think about where it came from. Alexia is obviously a psychopath, a serial killer. I thought about how female serial killers could be portrayed in the movie. When you show a violent woman that needs an explanation, and I didn’t want to explain anything. Just show that violence. I wanted to create a character that was not designated as a victim, but rather the element of surprise was built into the script.
– How did you work with the leading actress, Agathe Rouselle, to ask her for that total dedication?
–We worked for a year. She had never acted before, we prepared the character by watching other movies. It was very hard physically. All that preparation was nothing compared to what came on the set. She had to do a lot of nudity work, she suffered hours of makeup …
– Where is femininity and masculinity in your film?
-Everywhere, it is mixed. I wanted characters that had both characteristics, to get away from stereotypes in all aspects of my film.
– What do you want to tell about motherhood?
– For me it is a film more about fatherhood than about motherhood. The male main character wants to be a father at all costs, while the female character does not want to be a mother. That is also a way to unseat gender stereotypes. I teach motherhood through pregnancy, I fight the idea that motherhood and pregnancy have to be a blessing, the best time of your life. Not all women feel this way. If you hold this, you are a monster. I wanted to show that women can suffer in those moments, hate herself, you can deny it. It is not talked about. It is important to remember that not all women want to be mothers and are free to choose it.
“Being the second woman to win the Palme d’Or is a huge step forward. There is no turning back”
“Your body does not define you, but the way you look into the eyes of others”
–’Titane ‘makes gender irrelevant. He talks about identity and new forms of family.
“It goes beyond gender, of course.” It is not something that I have invented, Simone de Beauvoir already said many years ago: gender is a social construction that limits us. We have to fight against that social construction. ‘Titane’ talks about accepting yourself and others. The only thing that matters is humanity, not your body defines you, but the way you look into the eyes of others.
– Tell me about the character of the firefighter who plays Vincent Lindon.
– It has to do with what we talked about before about stereotypes. He is a character that is kept alive by what is injected, lives thanks to his fantasy. I wanted him to see something threatening in Alexia’s eyes, because in his madness he is a very protective man. At the same time, we see him as someone who is lost, he wanted these extremes to coexist in the same character. That is why it was so important that Vincent Lindon be muscular, that also led him to his relationship with his childhood.
Julia Ducournau gives directions to actress Agathe Rouselle on the set of ‘Titane’.
– She is the second woman to win the Palme d’Or after Jane Campion. Do you feel like a pioneer or part of something that has no turning back?
“I don’t feel like a pioneer, Jane Campion was there before me.” Being the second woman to win the Palme d’Or is a huge leap forward. I thought about it when I was on stage. Third, fourth and fifth female directors will come. It was very exciting, I thought that all of this was far beyond my movie. It is something progressive that is heading towards the future. Honestly, it made me feel less alone. Being optimistic, there is no going back. And thinking that makes me feel really good.
– When the assault on Hollywood?
– I have two projects under development, one in France and the other in the United States. Nothing has changed in this regard. Best of all, I can do both, I can shoot here and there. They are two opposite ways of working. I also like to do series, and I hope to be able to move on both sides of the Atlantic.
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