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Julia Ducournau is telling me a horror story.
Shes five-foot-nine but gives off the distinct impression that she is six-foot-nine.
She warns me that she cant stay inside the museum chatting fortoo long without a break.
Its not because I like fresh air or anything.
I dont give a shit about that, she says.
But I like smoking.
When I say a year, its not like a year and Im going on holidays, she says.
On the rare occasion that she did write a sentence, she immediately deleted it, disgusted.
The specter of expectations haunted her.
People wantedRaw 2 likeRawbut more gory, she says, rolling her eyes.
The only way was to try.
Ducournau has been driven by an obsessive intensity of focus for as long as she can remember.
I didnt have a clue what was happening, she says.
I accepted it as a kid so absolutely.
You always feel like a monster when youre a teenager.
You have weird hair, she says.
The element of monstrosity in teenage years is incredibly enduring and real.
I froze and I couldnt, she says.
I didnt know if I could do more than what I had already done.
And so I didnt get published.
And then I lost poetry.
Its like everything: You have to work to be good.
Its not like some biblical illumination falling on you.
By 20, she says, she knew she was going to become a filmmaker.
She dismisses her first shorts as so bad, but smiles widely as she describes an early 16-mm.
I think that all directors make the same thing over and over again, she says.
And I think its really true.
My films are layers, she says, that I leave behind to get to the next skin.
Despite the crazed vehicular lust of herTitaneprotagonist, Ducournau does not drive.
In fact, she doesnt give a shit about cars.
(That aspect of the film is obviously symbolic, she says.)
A gapingcanvas-and-steel pieceby Lee Bontecou that looks like the abyss itself stops her cold.
Naturally, the early affirmation of Ducournaus talent terrified her.
Ducournau was thrilled her strange little movie translated to a larger audience but disappointed by the conversation it spawned.
She insists that she didnt want to gratuitously shock anyone.
She was particularly furious at France, which put the highest-possible rating restriction on the film.
Its just another body.
Its just because its different that its disturbing.
Ducournau and I pause again, this time in front ofYves KleinsBlue Monochrome,a confrontational single-shade canvas.
He spent a long time looking for that blue, says Ducournau, referring to Kleins painting.
He committed suicide, and some people say that its because of this blue.
She looks at me like someone might look at a child who has just spilled food on themselves.
I think its more what the bluemeans.
I was angry atRawin a way, because it was taking way too much space.
But she is uncharacteristically sloppy during the murder of a would-be love interest named what else?
Justine (Marillier).
But now Justine is dead.
Ducournau knew her script was, well, demented.
There was no strategy.
Im not going to do three acts.
It doesnt work for my film.
Im going to do exactly what I want, she says.
The script was picked up by Neon in 2019,and by last year, she was filming.
For her near-silent, scathing protagonist, Ducournau chose another unknown.
On set, she faced hours of makeup and prosthetics.
Basically, my body didnt belong to me for two months of shooting, Rousselle says.
It was really disturbing.
I didnt have time to just regroup and be Agathe again.
So I had this kind of dissociated experience.
In an early scene, Alexia purposefully breaks her nose on the side of a sink.
Ducournau laughs when I tell her this.
I knew that would happen, she says.
You know why I am happy about this?
Because you actually dont see anything.
You think you see something, but you dont.
When you anticipate something, somehow it makes it worse in your head.
But somebody with a vision, an idea.
As Impens explains, Ducournau is bored very quickly.
Shes very smart, so when things dont move or go fast enough …
He trails off and laughs.
Its not really that Im bored, she says.
Its that Im impatient.
Not just the script.
Its also how you portray and deconstruct gender stereotypes.
(When I ask if she herselfidentifies as queer, she stops me with a bemused but stony gaze.
Who I am and what I am is absolutely irrelevant.
Everything that counts is the art.)
Ducournau was so certain of its power that she shot it through only once.
Impens vividly remembers the moment: She said, Its perfect, lets move on.
Everybody was like, Are you sure?
Of course Im sure.
Is it on camera?
Ducournau says the experience of makingTitanehelped her finally shed whatever was left of her self-doubt.
That doesnt mean Im going to do a comedy, she says quickly.
And somehow that questions the very reason youre alive.
Its the best thing ever.
Heights one of her onlyfears.
I have horrible vertigo, she says.
You have to help me.
She ponders this for a moment.
I think the vertigo maybe has to do with letting go and control.
Im going to tell you something very interesting, she says, lowering her voice.
The only place I brave my fear is on set.
You power through, I suggest.
Yes, she says.
For me, my film is more important than if I die on set.
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