Julia Ducournau made her feature-length debut with the teen cannibalism drama Raw, one of the best horror movies in recent memory. That was five years ago, but the French filmmaker’s follow-up, Titane, is debuting at the Cannes Film Festival in July.
This is where I’d usually describe the plot of the film, but the Titane teaser, which you can watch above, is a series of context-less, dialogue-free scenes. There’s gyrating, cars, a buff dude in unflattering light, nudity, fire, and a late appearance from “She’s Not There” by the Zombies. Neon’s official plot synopsis isn’t much help either: “TITANE: A metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys, often used in medical prostheses due to its pronounced biocompatibility.” Like Homer Simpson watching Twin Peaks, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but it looks brilliant.
“My scripts are very precise, and when I write a scene, I know exactly what the shots should be,” Ducournau told the AV Club about her filmmaking process. “I see them all in my head already. Sometimes I even start cutting scenes in the script. When I’m writing a scene I know I’m going to keep, I start cutting it mentally so I have it in my head… I actually have nightmares about seeing myself on set and not knowing where to put the camera. It really freaks me out.”
Titane, which stars Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Laïs Salameh, and Garance Marillier (who was also in Raw), does not have a release date in America yet.