¶ Physical Media and Art House Horror
You are payment . It can be Whoa . You're going to need that now . Hello , welcome to Blood House , the show where we talk about art house horror movies . I'm your host , joshua Conkle .
And I'm your car fucking co-host , sister Silla Adeline . Welcome back to another episode , hooray Huzzah indeed .
Huzzah , how are you ? What's going on , uh ?
I'm fine . I've been in a bit of a funk the past week . I had a bit of a breakdown this past week , but I'm back . I can speak in coherent sentences and I am no longer drooling on the floor . True stuff .
Something is in the air , something astrologically is happening . I don't know what it is , but I was fully in sweatpants and on the verge of tears for a solid week . It's crazy .
Yeah , i I don't know what . I've been going through some stuff like in my personal life And that's been really heavy and stressful , and some kind of weird parallels came up in a different part of my life And that was just very stressful .
And then they all came to a head this past week and I kind of just broke like big time broke , uh , and then I had to take a few days to like put my pieces back together .
Um , but even as soon as I started like feeling better again and started like doing like great things again , then all of a sudden my dreams were like no way in hell , uh , and I've been having like vicious nightmares recently too . It was just like I don't know , psychically I'm not all there .
Yeah , but you know , i feel similarly . Um yeah , same same sort of scenario . I'm sure the circumstances are quite different . Um , and we don't have to bore the listener with our clinical depression . Um , have you watched anything good ?
Yeah , i mean I . So since the last time we've recorded um , kenneth Anger , queer , spiritual and filmmaking icon , uh , and satanic icon , passed away . So I watched a bunch of Kenneth Anger shorts , um , and show them to my partner because she'd never seen any Um .
And so we , the morning that I think I got a text from you , um saying , uh , that Kenneth Anger had passed away . And that morning , before I went to work , we literally like got portos , pulled up Kenneth Anger shorts on YouTube and just watched like five of them , yeah , um , and it was just so good for my body and for my soul .
But , good God , do I not know how to live in a world without Kenneth Anger ? You ?
know it was . so . he was so incredible , such a um unique and single , you know , artist and um so influential , worked over , i mean , he was almost a hundred years old . I mean , if anyone earned their rest , it's Kenneth Anger Um , but it is a loss for the rest of us for sure .
Mm , hmm , it's also a huge loss for young 20 something tweaks coming into Los Angeles hoping to find an elderly filmmaking sugar daddy , because he will no longer fill that role Yeah .
Which ones did you watch ?
Uh , invocation of um , my dream brother . We watched custom car commandos . We watched Lucifer Rising Um it . It was a really nice morning and I like since then I've been like I need to buy these . It's weird that I don't own these movies . I need to go out and buy the magic lantern cycle , which only available in the UK . So really , time to import .
This week has been punctuated by a lot of like conversations with my partner of like we should , we should . Why don't I own that movie ? We should watch that movie And then looking up to find that a recent movie is , like not available .
Listen , it all goes back to this writer strike Hollywood moments , stuff where , like , digital shit is disappearing . They fed us this bill of goods that you know . the streaming era promised that we would have everything that's ever been made at our fingertips , and it turns out the opposite is true .
So , like you , better stop hoarding that physical media while you can Well even part of that , like we were talking about , there's a movie from a few years ago that we both love . That's super funny and weird , called greener grass .
Uh , have you seen it ? No , but my friend Christian saw it when he came out and really loved it . I think someone was telling me a lot about it . You would adore it .
It is like the cross section between David Lynch and John Waters . Oh , I did . I feel like very funny , very weird . And we were talking about how much we loved it and I was like it's weird that I don't have that . I should go like grab a physical copy .
I remember it was put out of the blue rays , out of print already after two years And so I had to like scrounge around on eBay to find one that wasn't insanely expensive . And then we were just having conversation last night about , uh , benedetta as well , and I was like , yeah , weird , i don't own Benedetta yet I should . I should go out and buy Benedetta .
And the only available release that's available in the US is like a Blu-ray that like removes the nipple from the poster , so it's just like a breast that has no nipple on it . That's bizarre . Uh , meanwhile , like the only like UHD version is in England , so I'm going to have to again like import something from England .
We were also talking about dinner in America , an incredible movie . Have you seen it ? No , i haven't seen it . So it's a punk rock coming of age romance very much in the spirit of Todd Salon's Kyle Gowner Isn't that Kyle Gowner's in it ? It is super funny , it is super cute And it's streaming on Hulu at the moment And I love it .
And I was gifted a physical copy of it from Arrow video when I would work with them that they had put out in the UK And I was talking with my partner about it and how much we , when we had watched it together .
She had loved it too And I was like , well , let me look to see if there's a US version and I can like give it to you so it's not region locked and you can watch it . It's never been released on disc in America .
Yeah .
I'd heard that before . What in fuck still like it's . they got a limited theatrical release and it's on Hulu , but you can't in America , you cannot own that movie on disc without a foreign region player . Awful , i don't like this . I don't like this .
So I don't understand why these companies can't offer print on demand Blu-rays , if nothing else . You know what I mean . Like Warner Archive did that for ages , where if you wanted a copy of like Urga music , war or whatever their obscure title was , you could just order it from a website . They print it for you and send it to you .
It feels like they could do that at least At least the big studios .
There . I mean there's also like a 24 movies that aren't on desk funny pages that I did the poster for . You can't buy on physical media in the United States .
What a time .
What a time to be alive . Such a bummer , Such a bummer . Have you watched anything good Josh ?
No , to be honest . I mean I've been watching . I finished Somebody Somewhere which I talked about last week and I started I think you should leave by Tim Robinson . Sketch Comedy .
Show Yes , yes , both adore .
I think Patty Harrison is maybe the funniest person on earth at this current moment . She is , Oh yeah , She's so funny . She's the rap mom . Yeah , the rap mom . Exactly , That's such a every . That show like I can only . It's very short , It's about 20 minutes tops per episode . I can only watch two of them because it hurts my brain so much .
So I'm thinking about it . Even though it's Sketch Comedy , it really is like it makes me think or something like it . It's like hard to watch them .
I have a friend who watches that show with me and we I was just out with her yesterday at an estate sale and my partner and I had already like binged through the most recent season and we were talking with her about it and she was like I know I've watched it , but every time I watch that show I like get so frustrated and lose my mind Watching it that I
don't remember the sketches until I've watched them a second time .
It's like free association . Basically . It's so weird that it's like every sketch you think you know what it's going to do , but it does something completely different . I know So I've been watching that . But what I really want to talk about and I you're going to feel some type of way about this But I'm reading a book that I especially .
While I was depressed this week , all I wanted to do was like live inside of this book , and the book is The Shards by Brad Easton Ellis , which is the new Oh yeah Brett book , and I actually really like his books . I know that as a person he's kind of a jerk , but this book is so fucking good I can't believe it .
It's set in 1981 in Los Angeles and it's kind of auto fiction . So it's actually about his real teen years , except that he inserts this fictional story about a serial killer called the trawler .
That's like plaguing his high school And it's just all eighties vibes of like him driving around Los Angeles and all the new wave songs that he's listening to on K-Rock and going to the Galleria and it's actually very frightening and it's just like what
¶ New Novel and "Teton" Film Review
he's good at . He's doing it again for the first time in a long time because he hasn't written a novel in 12 years , so this is like less than zero meets American Psycho and I just like I cannot put it down . I just want to keep reading it . I think there's going to be an HBO mini series of it is what I think I read .
But I know that you don't like him as a person and I totally get that and I feel similarly , but God , he's such a good writer .
Yeah , he , he sucks big time . But I saw someone at my office with this on their desk recently and I was like , oh , is there a Brett Easton Ellis book I haven't heard of weird ? and then , oh , he has a new one .
It's incredible , it's very bizarre , and I guess he did it as like an audio drama in 2020 . That's how it started , like in little chapters , once a week you can get a little another section of it . But fuck , it's good . I just like . I want to live in 1981's LA so badly .
I know there's a part where he talks about going to the movies , and the movies that are playing are like an American werewolf in London Hell night . It's just like it's so weird .
Oh my God , i I really should read this . I love the cover of the paperback . Yeah , it's like an image of a male body , like submerged in water .
It is a little bit . It is chunky , it's 600 pages , but it just is so immersive You feel like you're living in it . And if you don't want to read it , what I will say is that somebody , some good citizen , has done a playlist on Spotify where every song that he mentions by name is on this playlist and it's like such a good new wave , it's .
It's just like five stars 100% vibe .
I need that , i do need a good new wave playlist right now . Oh my God , it's really good .
So I know that he's not a nice person , but God , he's such a good writer And this book is so good . I cannot recommend it highly enough .
Good . I haven't had a good novel to like sink my fangs into in a long time . Yeah , And I've been like back and forth on a few books that have been like in the middle of the past like three years I feel like .
Yeah , And it's long , but it's not challenging . It's like you know , it's Like on a line by line level it's . it's a really easy read . It's like drinking a soda or something . I just , I love it .
I love describing Someone's prose as like drinking a soda . Yeah , I like that . I like that so much Yeah .
Anyway , um , shall we , let's shout . Okay , This is a movie that I somehow had not seen , mostly because we have this podcast And I knew that I would have to watch it for the podcast one day . And I say that as if I didn't want to watch it . I did want to watch it , i was the one who picked it , in fact , but we finally got around to it .
From 2021 . This is the French horror film by Julia de Corneau Teton .
Once again , we are completing a filmmaker .
Yes , filmography year two of Blood House , where we're completing people's filmography , she . We also covered her film raw with special guest Zelda Adams last year early on in the podcast , so you should go back and listen to that .
And here we are covering her second film , ditan , which won The Palm door I can 2021 the deal the first female director to win the palm door since the piano , and like 1992 . Yeah , I think it said that she's only the second woman to win to yes .
I think female .
Yeah , second female to win the palm door , the Philceville's top award , as well as the first few filmmaker to win solo . I don't really know what that means to Jane Campion . Share that award , i guess .
I think that year it was tied . Oh , it went to two different films got it .
She also won a BAFTA . She was shortlisted for the Oscar but didn't make the She'd long listed for the Oscar , rather , but didn't make the shortlist , which is a bummer . I think she really deserved it . But it just goes to speak about that thing , about how Oscars don't give awards to horror films , basically , ever so .
Yeah , fuck . No , there's no way the Oscars were going to recognize Teton .
Yeah , i don't know why I didn't see I mean it . It came on 2021 , which was two years ago . It obviously we were a deep intent pandemic at that point . I did really want to see this . I just never got around to it . And then we started this podcast on Valentine's Day 2022 and I thought , well , now I'll have to watch it for the podcast .
So I'll just wait till that moment comes , and I'm glad I did , because I loved it . I assume that you're a fan of this movie too , based on what I know about you in this movie .
Now , Yeah , i mean I like this movie , but I think I I Think I like it , i think I like raw more and I think I like David Cronenberg's crash more . I think Teton is a very interesting movie . that Was marketed one way and it's actually a different movie .
Hmm , i Preferred this to raw , which I also really liked . So you know , it's like It's a close call And I did think about David Cronenberg's crash a lot , for obvious reasons that I'm sure we'll get into , and I fact I was like God this would make such an interesting double feature with with crash , two movies about people who fuck cars .
Basically , yeah , i guess I'll just give a quick synopsis .
¶ Serial Killer Exotic Dancer Thriller
This movie follows a young woman named Alexia who as a child , got into a bad car accident Which required her to get titanium plate in her head . To time is the French word for titanium . But mostly we're following her as a young woman in her 20s . She's an exotic dancer at car shows , which is like a very specific thing to this movie .
You know she seems to be somewhat famous for this like men want to get her autograph and things like that . But she also fucks cars , which is hard to explain unless you see that she like really fucks a Lowrider at night in a warehouse . She gets in the backseat .
She wraps her arms around the Sea belts on either side and then Humps away in the car .
Yeah , and it's Seems to be pretty good sex and she becomes pregnant by the car . Now she's also a serial killer and Eventually we find her on the lamb Because the police are closing in . So she changes her appearance to take over the identity of a boy who went missing 10 years prior .
That boy's father comes to collect her and takes her home to the firehouse where he lives with other firemen and and all kind of intensifies from there . She's Concealing her identity , pretending to be this missing boy now as an adult , 10 years later , and hiding her pregnancy from a car . Anything that you wish to add . Her amend I .
Mean , that's more or less it . Yeah , it's a Very interesting Psycho-sexual look at masculinity .
Yeah , Yeah , which is ?
not what I was expecting from this movie .
No , yeah , there's also something about like the I Don't know the fluidity of gender , i guess .
But you're right , there is something about her experiencing life as a man And no , and as like an outsider , as like an impartial observer , because she goes to this firehouse where there's all these really great , like sort of gay coded fireman dance parties , so like future islands , you know .
Well , it's a direct contrast to all the like car shows that you would dance at the beginning . You now have all the firefighters in the firehouse around the trucks Yeah , dancing and having a good time there .
What are these car shows like ? let's start at the beginning , like it's such a weird specific culture that I'm not sure exists Really . But there's like all of these hot cars in a big showroom And then there are these beautiful women dancing in and on them and people just kind of walking around Looking at them .
So it is like a horned up version of what a real car show is . And then later a man comes to her car Asking for her autograph and says like oh , i saw you last year in a boat show . Yeah , it's like is this ? this isn't real right like this . Where does this exist ? Nothing , it matters . I just thought it was like such an interesting choice .
I mean it feels like something that would exist . But it's living somewhere in between the like Midwest . Like annual car show down at the Civic Center . Come on down , bring your kids right . That's what a real car show is like . It's somewhere between that and then , like fast and furious Tokyo , drift like illegal street racing .
Yeah , it's somewhere in between those , to the point that I'm like I buy this shirt . Yeah , cuz , it's some cuz . It feels like club kid culture in France that they're all very proud of their cars and They're showing them off and then they're paying very hot women to dance Lodely on the cars to make people see more interested in them or something .
It just feels like a place where people are doing a lot of drugs and , yeah , assholes .
Yeah , it's like a car show meets a nightclub . Yeah .
And I would like to go at least one time for the oddity of a very drusso .
A coded event .
Fair .
Me as somebody who doesn't like cars and is not sexually attracted to women , i was like this has . This event offers me nothing Except a trip out of the house , i guess as someone who's highly sexually attracted to women and love cars .
Fair . But Alexi is all . I mean . We can get into the gender aspects of Alexia later , because I think a good portion of that is Hinted at in this section in the movie . But yeah , she's like a serial killer .
Yeah , she murders people by sticking them in the ear with the chopstick she pulls out of her .
Hair yeah , she has her hair up in a bun that's held together with like a steel or , i guess , titanium Chopstick , and she stabs them .
Oh , my god , the chopstick thing I So it really took me back because in the 90s , wearing chopsticks in your hair was like a really big trend for girls and in fact my tolo date one year . I could get this person so cancelled if I said her name because Tolo was like Sadie Hawkins , where the girls asked the boys and our photos it was .
This was very in style at the time and very normal , but there was a Moment in the 90s were like Asian style . Silk dresses were very popular , oh yes , and so this girl wore one of those and had chopsticks in her hair .
She was white and that's like our tolo photos and it was not at all Controversial at the time and the cultures changed very much since the 1990s , but that's what the chopstick in the hair reminded me of .
Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . It well mean , it was also making me think of killing Eve .
Yes .
Which great show until not And has Eve definitely kills a few people that way and a way that I adore .
Eve is like one of the most likable serial killers of all time .
She's baby , she's Alexia is not Alexi . Is there a cold and detached ? Yeah , she lives with other people . It seems like She's her parents . Yeah , she lives with her parents and is also just like going living the nightclub life and like visiting other people and presumably hook up with and do some drugs with and just just kills them .
Yeah , i was really into that performance . The actress's name I don't know if I'm saying this right is Agatha Agatha Roussel , and this is her first Starring role in a feature film . I mean , she done some shorts and stuff , but she's actually a journalist and model .
She founded a feminist magazine , so she's done a lot of like cool journalism things and she's a model . She's really good in this , i thought .
Yeah , i think she's incredible in this movie .
it's like I love when models are good at acting like . Remember when ? what's her name ? who's in monster ? Shirley Theron . Yes , shirley's like . She was just like this fashion model who , just like , wanted to be an actor . And then she there , she is a monster which .
I didn't know that Shirley was the wrong , was a model first , oh yeah yeah , she was like a high fashion model and then Change role .
I mean , i don't know , models are so often good at acting , it seems . But I mean camera Diaz .
Yeah .
I miss camera Diaz .
Yeah , camera Diaz is back . Is she what she and she's she will . She announced that she's a unretiring and she's doing a project with Jamie Foxx . That's great , or something . Yeah , yeah , yeah , i love camera Diaz , so so , so , so , so , so much .
Anyway , yes , i got through , so is phenomenal In this performance and it's a really complex character and it's a really complex performance totally .
She doesn't have a lot of dialogue , but that doesn't . I mean it doesn't matter , she's giving . She's giving so much and so much is required of the role .
I was particularly upset when so the moment she changes her identity she's on the land from the police , she sees a digital sign that has missing posters of children from 10 years ago , sees a boy named Adrian , goes to the bathroom , shaves her head and breaks her own nose against the sink So that it will be a different shape , and it's what it really got under
me . There's a lot that gets under the skin from this movie , but that was the first moment was like I don't know if I can handle this .
It's so good it's . That scene is so fucking rough and you're just kind of like sitting in it for as long as it takes . Yeah , oh my god . But yeah , and like 20 minutes into this movie , maybe 30 minutes into this movie this happens and it becomes like a changeling narrative .
At this point , yeah , for passing herself off As Adrian , as this boy , and it's just accepted . Yeah , like instantaneously .
Yeah , well , so this man , vincent , who's like a fire captain , comes to collect her because she's pretending to be his missing son , so like in the intermeeting . 10 years his marriage has fallen apart , you know .
he's been grieving his lost son and there's an open question for the majority of the movie about whether or not he knows this isn't really his son , or If he's just so desperate and needs someone so badly that he's willing to pretend it's his son , or if it's something in between . That's stranger . It's really good .
That feels like a stupid limiting thing to say , but it's just like it's really interesting to . That question is like one of the more interesting aspects of the movie to me .
It's never fully answered one way or another , but it's heavily implied that , like Through and changes with the movie , that initially it's kind of more suggested that through his grief and through all of these years of waiting , soon as he sees anyone , he's going to accept this person presented to him as his son , to make sure that this is his son and make just
immediately toss him into the fire station and all that kind of stuff , right they can be a firefighter Yeah yeah , and then , as as it progresses , he kind of stops caring and just starts accepting anyone and just having a son . I think it's less Who it is And I so .
For me that reads to me , along with the like fluidity of gender in this , as like a like trans acceptance by a parent which . I think is beautiful and lovely , but we should talk about the gender presentation of a guy through . so this character and this movie , because it's interesting .
Well , right , because she's actually not trans . She's on the run , and so during all of this , she is binding to become Adrian . Not just her breasts , but her rapidly growing pregnant body .
Which is one of the harder aspects of the movie to watch .
Yes , and the whole pregnancy is so upsetting because she's pregnant by a car right , so she's like leaking motor fuel from her vagina and her nipples and it's really fucked up .
It's really , it's really quite something and I didn't know that that was part of the movie and I was like my boyfriend Joel was watching it with me and when she fucks the low rider at the car show , what if she becomes pregnant ? like haha .
Somewhere . Julie Decorno was like yes , haha .
I we .
You think this is funny , my sister .
So what do you think about the gender presentation here ?
It's interesting because her as Alexia would how we meet her initially , this idea of her as like extremely feminine height , like super sexy , like dancing on cars and like luring men and all this stuff feels more performative than when she's binding . Yeah , like a lot . It feels like a persona she puts on .
An Adrian is also a persona that she puts on , but it's a persona that she like , slowly and inadvertently finds herself comfortable in . Yeah , where it feels like she's constantly bucking up against this expectation and presentation of her as Alexi . Alexis at the beginning , that's my read of this movie .
It's not explicitly and it's not explicitly a like one to one . This is a trans male movie .
No it's a mask movie .
It's dancing in that it's dancing in that and it's a non binary movie Yeah . It is a trans movie like .
It's interesting too , because we get like kind of gender affirming care elsewhere in the movie too . So like her quote unquote , father Vincent is like he's an older man , maybe in his late fifties or so , and he's like muscle bound and we see him like taking testosterone in the in the butt every night and he's got bruises there and stuff .
So he's like doing sort of like gender affirming care for himself too in a way . It's so he , but he's like also reaching for masculinity in these ways that are like chemical or I don't know what I'm saying .
Yeah , i mean like he is Taking hormone replacement therapy himself .
Yeah .
Despite the fact that he is a cisgendered man , which is a thing that people fucking do .
Oh , i have to tell you drew I mean as a man in my forties Instagram is constantly serving me ads for testosterone treatment , like I get them all day , every day .
Yeah , yeah , because lose your hair faster . That would be great Yeah .
On my back Just to be like a little bit buffer . It's fine .
Yeah , and he is like upsettingly buff , like he looks like Iggy Pop level lumpy . No shade to Vincent Lydon or Iggy Pop , but Yeah . It's very , very
¶ Gender and Masculinity in a Firehouse
weird . I remember when this movie came out a friend of mine had gone to see it and before I did I was able to see in theaters and she had told me that she was like , yeah , the dad's really hot in this . And I was like What ?
and I remember watching it and seeing like the dad of the family at the beginning that she lives with and I was like I don't really know and then we get to Vincent Lydon and I'm like are you fucking kidding me ? that's what you were talking about . Go to hell .
No , well , i mean it is the masculine idea , ideal , right , like you know , super muscular , kind of like Tarzan body , yeah , and a lot of people are into older men . I mean , for all of these conversations about age gaps , you have to just chalk it up to like some people really are horned up by older , older people . It's just .
It's a preference thing , yeah , but yeah , the way that Agatha Russell is just tossed into this like stew of masculinity in this firehouse , which also a fucking firehouse- Yeah , totally . Come on , those are like . I like that being the presentation of where do the most manly men work ?
Because it's both working on cars , because they have to work on the fire trucks and you know , being a public servant and doing all that kind of like cop stuff but also running into burning buildings every fucking day And they just live with the fire fighters have to like live in the firehouse when they're on shift .
Yeah , and like it's really funny because at night they have these like raves essentially , where there's a great beautifully filmed segment where they're like dancing to this future islands , which is a band I really love song and I do . why are you laughing at me liking future islands ?
I know . I just I don't even know who that is and the like . I think that's very awesome and cute , that of course it would be something that's like right up your alley .
Oh , i love that band . They're a Baltimore band So they're listening to this future island song and it's filmed in slow motion and it's got this sort of bisexual lighting and it's just men , these fire fighters like dancing and drinking beers and smoking cigarettes And it's just so beautifully filmed .
It's almost like Kenneth anger , or you know what I mean , or like one of those Who's . Who's the other ones , derek Jarman , yeah , it's kind of got that vibe almost .
It's a really nice like gentle , homo erotic like look at men , look at cars , look at men , look at car . Yeah , totally , it's like Tom of Finland level of like iconic masculine 100% Yeah , yeah , and , and eventually , of course , she decides to dance with them And for them .
She gets on a fire truck and starts doing the dances that she used to do as a female erotic dancer , which confuses and repulses all of them because it's like effeminate And , of course , her quote unquote . dad Vincent walks into the space to see this and sends everyone away and is ashamed and confused .
At first . Well , because there's also like a sort of sexual tension between her and Vincent .
Yes , yeah . There's like a great and weird scene where he's kind of drunk and he tries to make her slow dance with him in this like sexy romantic way , even though she's his son . It's very off-putting .
Yeah , and it's like I don't know . there's questions of like is this the way that he treated his son before the son disappeared ? Also , what actually happened to the son ?
Yeah , there's more stuff like that too . I'm glad you reminded me because also , his son was like 10 when he disappeared or whatever Like as like a child .
There's a scene where Alexia is alone in her his room at the firehouse and she goes into the closet and finds like a yellow sunflower dress that belonged to Adrian's mother and puts it on and then the invents comes in and she tries to hide in the closet but he finds her and then he's like happy and laughs because and then shows her a photo of Adrian as a
child wearing that dress . So like it seemed like maybe there was something queer or trans about Adrian because he liked to dress up in his mom's dresses , and now so is this version of Adrian . so it kind of confirms to Vincent that this is in fact his son . It's very strange .
So interesting . Yeah , i , yeah . I think part of the reason that I like this movie a lot but I don't love it is because it presents a lot of these ideas that I find like really interesting and really exciting , and it doesn't even remotely provide answers to them , which I like a lot in a very like picking a rock sense .
But also it does a lot of other things in lieu of providing those answers that we'll get to in a minute . Ie car pregnancy that I'm like okay , there is .
I don't think that this is malicious or mean spirited , but there is a gender essentialist read of this movie , because I'm just thinking this through now , so bear with me . Alexia is pregnant by this car and is having a very dangerous , difficult pregnancy . She changes genders , not because she's trans , but because she's running from the police .
But she enters this life of men and this masculinity but spoiler alert she's still undone by her biological body . At the end She does die as a result of this pregnancy , and so there is like there's something gender essentialist about that .
Yeah , there's . I mean , if you read it as a trans mask movie , the pregnancy is there to kind of be like but you could never be a man .
That's kind of what I'm trying to dance around .
Yeah , although trans men get pregnant all the time , so they do trans men get pregnant all the time and they're still men and they survive , like yeah , they are happy fathers , like .
So that kind of might also be one of the things that sits in the back of my throat with this movie that I was also just like and I know it's not the intention of the film right , it doesn't feel mean spirited .
I would be surprised if Julia D'Corneau felt that way . As a person and with politics , you know , i just can't imagine her having those kind of JK Rowling turf island politics . So it feels like accidental or not the intention in some way to me .
Yeah , but it feels I think that's part of the other reason why this movie like is something that I like but I don't love is because it plays with these ideas of gender and it plays with gender nonconformity and the idea of gendered performance and suggesting that the idea of gender transition but it doesn't say anything really looks wrong either way on that .
It feels like it's discussing cisgender femininity through this .
It feels like it has more to say about the way women are raised and treated and that women don't have to be brought into specific boxes of being presented this way and presenting themselves in one way or another , and of like breaking down gendered expectations of boys and girls and things like that , which is very fine , but like I don't know .
When you talked earlier about how she sort of becomes more herself by transitioning , i wonder if there's any element of this that's like you know about the expectations that are placed on women and the way that we socialize women . I wonder if there's any element of this that's saying like she becomes more free by becoming a man in some way .
Yeah , i mean , i think so , because she becomes a man to escape the law . She loses all homicidal tendencies . as Adrienne , she's not like trying to murder anyone . Meanwhile , the little bit of time that we got with her at the beginning she was just like hacking and slashing at the drop of a hat .
But a bit of a shallow assertion , i guess , because men are also the victims of patriarchy . Being a man in our society is incredibly oppressive , which this movie kind of deals with a little bit , but like it's not a picnic for men either No , not Like . We're all victims of patriarchy .
And I think that's also something that the movie's getting at in terms of how the father is presented and how he treats her , as Adrienne too , is not great , and the fact that he's like going like he's taking these testosterone shots to like continue beefing up his body is not fucking great . And the way the like men of the firehouse treat him is not great .
I guess the movie does deal with that stuff too . You're right , it does a little bit .
I mean , i feel like this movie is using a lot of like trans visual language to talk about cisgender views , on gender , and by that , which I think is fine at best , lame at worst . Yeah , i mean , from my readings and from my friends that are transmask , they love this movie .
So I've yet to meet a transmask individual who doesn't relate to and or enjoy to Taun . I don't think any of them love it . Knowing saying that this is , like you know , a replacement for better movies that are explicitly trans , i feel like I don't know .
I feel like there's ideas of gender that are opened up for discussion by this movie but not commented on .
Yeah , i mean , i do . I understand what you mean . I guess I agree with that I also , but I also don't know that I feel like a movie has to have a stance necessarily .
I agree . Yeah , i agree . It's just something that I find I don't know a little .
It's part of the thing that makes me not return to it as often as I return to raw or crash is that for me these are very personal ideas and concepts and like up to the minute , like political stuff even that I would like to see explored in depth , and it's nice and cool to present them in a kind of like lighter touch way to discuss a different aspect of
the human body and of experience . But I just I don't know . I personally would like more .
How do you think this movie will age ?
Very interesting . I don't know . It's hard to predict the future . It's very , very hard . But again , something that's interesting to me is that since it came out , it would it got a lot of buzz . Before it came out , a lot of people were talking about it . It finally got released stateside by neon .
It didn't get a long theatrical release , but a lot of people saw it around then and people talked about it . After the fact I don't hear anyone talk about it anymore .
I will say , as a person who manages our email and our Twitter , we do get a lot of requests for it . It's like one of the ones that we more get , more often than other movies . We get people like saying do you turn ?
Okay , well , i just I don't hear people that frequently discussing it in like casual conversation and the way that other like I feel like tangerine and explicitly trans film gets brought up like verbally conversation around other films quite frequently And I feel like Kronerberg's crash still gets brought up quite frequently .
Yeah , But there was also a long time when crash wasn't talked about for years .
Right , they just got it's got a release , right . So like I think people , things come in and out of the conversation , sort of do you know what this is like ? kind of off topic . but do you know what I was realizing ? people never talk about anymore that used .
that was like such a moment in horror I say I feel like no one ever talks about cabin in the woods , remember it was such a big moment .
It was such a big moment . I think we're kind of over cabin in the woods , yeah .
I think we're over metatextual Joss Whedon films .
I just vividly remember when cabin in the woods came out , no one I knew was into horror movies And I was only dipping my toe into it . And my parents were recently divorced and my dad was going on dates for the first time in like 30 years or something like that , And I remember being like in the car with him and him being like .
I went on a date the other night and I saw the worst movie I've ever seen And I was like what was it ?
And he was like cabin in the woods .
It was just so stupid .
That's such a fun movie .
Okay , and then , like a month later , me and all my friends watched it like together and we're like this is incredible .
Yeah , i just wonder if this movie will suffer some day some sort of like Rocky Horror pictures .
¶ Transphobia and Film Readings
Some people now are talking about how Rocky Horror Picture Show is transphobic , which I can understand in a way , but it's also like it's also the most celebratory , joyously queer movie for like decades and decades and decades . So like I don't know , i just wonder if people will ever react in some weird kind of way to this Like they do that .
I mean , i don't think the Rocky Horror Picture Show is transphobic . Well , because it's not , but because it's not . But I think in the year of our Lord , 2020 , 2019 or whatever , casting a drag queen to play Frank Conferter is transphobic . But that's a different thing , because that's something they did on Fox .
Wait , they cast Lever and Cox right . Oh , they cast Lever and Cox .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , it was a trans woman Oh . I don't know that . I've never heard that they that things that like they have , like Bob the drag queen do it a few years ago .
Oh really .
Live stuff and a few other .
The live like the big live . One was Lever and Cox .
Oh , i didn't see , so I don't know how That's fucking awesome .
Good She was or not , but yeah Hell yeah , i mean , i did not watch that because why would you watch ? Listen , like I know , this is a movie that you hate . for example , i haven't seen it since it came up , but , like , boys Don't Cry is a movie that most aged like milk . Exactly , Exactly .
I mean something like that that we can't expect or predict will happen to Tutan or not , it's possible .
I mean , i think I'm in the same way that , like signs and lambs , has also aged poorly , because signs and lambs uses the visual language of trans experience to talk about cisgendered female experience , yeah , and gendered expectations of cisgender women . So it's possible . I don't think Tutan is transphobic .
I am not going to call Tutan transphobic , but I'm also not going to call Tutan transfilm , like explicitly . I mean it is a gender not conforming film which in one way is a transfilm , but I don't think in terms of its visual presentation of its characters , but I don't think thematically that it's a transfilm .
I think thematically it's about cisgender womanhood , yeah .
Based on gender expectations .
Yeah , based on the like ways that it depicts her character before and the way that it depicts the father's character , and from what we know about Julie D'Cornault and from her previous films . That is my reading of it , but that's just whatever .
Julie D'Cornault has real daddy issues . Julie D'Cornault has big daddy issues .
The dad in raw and the dad and Teton need to get together for like a counseling group .
Anything else to say about this before we move on ?
I think it's almost great , but pretty good , and I don't know . if you think it's transphobic , please tell me why ? Or if you're a trans dude and you're like no , no , no , this movie's my experience . Fuck yeah , And tell me why .
Yeah , we'd love to hear . We do have trans dude listeners , so reach out , let us know . Hell . Yeah , so let's play . Have They Seen It ? The game where we speculate wildly whether notable figures have seen this movie . I've got someone in mind . She's French , her name is Catherine Deneuve . Do you think Catherine Deneuve has seen D'Ton ?
I feel like Catherine Deneuve , I mean one palm door . Yeah , that's what I'm saying . I feel like Catherine Deneuve saw it at Cannes or after it won the palm door . She was like ah zut la la , a female director wins the palm door and watched it and just like , sat there smoking a cigarette for the entire run of the movie and hated it .
I feel like she would hate it and she would be like why do these young women no longer want to be female ? They do not want to be feminine .
Or I can see Catherine Deneuve loving it for the exact reason that you just mentioned earlier of being like oh see , she could never be a man Like God . Never ask a French woman her age or her politics . Exactly . Well , from discussing transphobia and transmask readings of films , here's a transmask person who's also a transphobe .
Oh no , i know you're gonna say go on . Do you think Buck Angel has seen Teton ?
Absolutely . I think so . I think he's seen it , i think he would like it , but I don't know why . I mean for the wrong reasons probably , and I'm not an expert on why people hate Buck Angel . So I just know that he is not liked in the trans community And I only have a vague sense of who he is to begin with .
He's a transmasochist , he like outs trans people And he is very conservative essentialist . We should just try to be as normal as possible . So the cis-hits like us and really , really , really bad , really really really dangerous , has been advocating for transphobic laws .
So strange . I mean , even Buck Angel is like an adult film star originally . right , You're never going to be accepted by cis-hits society , even based on that , let alone being trans .
Those things compounding one another , it's like forget about it They will use you as a puppet to say the things they want you to say , and then they will treat you as terribly as they treat the rest of us . It infuriates me . There's a lot of like online trans , like quote unquote celebs that use their entire platform to be like , but not me , right .
Right . I mean , Caitlin Jenner is kind of one of those people too right , Where she's like literally a Republican politician .
Yeah , they're not going to like you , honey , jesus Christ , yeah , i feel like Buck Angel like loves the dad in this movie . He sees himself in the dad in this movie 100% . Like shepherding young trans men . Yeah , and like mourning their deaths while stabbing them in the gut .
So I don't know what made me think of this person . I guess Rocky Hoar picture show . Do you think Richard O'Brien has seen Titan ?
God , I feel like he hasn't yet . I feel like Richard O'Brien hasn't seen a movie that was a new release since 2006 . I feel like he's just living in some kind of a layer in the West End of London .
No , he lives in rural New Zealand . He what ? Yeah , I found out he lived in New Zealand when I lived there in 2013 . He lives in either Hamilton or Nelson , which are basically like living in Spokane Washington , you know , like smaller cities in New . Zealand .
Yeah , Good for him , that's awesome .
And originally he is a Kiwi , which I didn't know . He was born in New Zealand .
Okay , yeah , yeah , huh . I just feel like he's like shacked up somewhere , just like rewatching Hammer movies . But I could be entirely incorrect , it's just New Zealand and not West London . Yeah , yeah , yeah , or like I mean I feel like he's also probably just sitting around watching a bunch of John Cogto like French art films .
Yeah .
But like he's still like I mean Titan's French art film He could be watching it .
I think he would like it .
I think he would like it a lot . I think he would like the visual flair of it . I think I could honestly see him being like it was good . I wanted more . I don't care about daddy issues . I don't know why my Richard O'Brien impression just sounds like the monarch for venture brothers . I think that's something that Richard O'Brien has to figure out for himself .
He does kind of look like that character . He does kind of Oh my God , you're fucking right .
So recently , don , who plays the daddy in this , has been in a lot of French movies for the past 30 years before obviously coming to Titan , one of which is one of my favorite French movies ever made , betty Blue by Jean-Jacques Benet , which was the breakout role for an ashes we've discussed in this podcast before because she was in trouble every day .
Do you think Beatrice Dahl has seen Titan ?
God , she's such a good actor . Yeah , I think so . given that this is French , given that I won the home door , I would say yes , I think that she would like it .
Yeah , I think she would . I think she would dig Titan , but I feel like I don't know . I feel like she would have some very weird takes about it . Yeah , I don't know why . Well , I do know she posted a photo recently somewhere on the internet of her hanging out with Kevin Spacey .
Oh , my God Yeah Bold .
Bold move . Yeah , the French will just be like oh , it's okay , they would . Yeah , i mean , they've been producing Roman Polanski movies for how long now ?
Absolutely . I was just going to say what's the name of that terrible man I'm getting so old that I forget people's names Who's the co-star of Trouble Every Day with her ?
Oh , my fucking God , i was just the brown bunny .
The brown bunny exactly .
Yeah , what is ?
Vincent Gallo .
Vincent Gallo yeah .
Do you think Vincent Gallo has seen Titan ?
Oh , yes , and he hates it .
I think he would hate it .
I feel like Vincent Gallo has like if you get him drunk enough , we'll go on the rant about how Titan is like misandriss , like promoting the killing of men , and he's like if I'd fucked her she'd be like .
For sure . I mean , this is a man who sells his sperm on his website for like $100,000 or something .
One of the moments that made me just fall like head over heels for the person that I'm dating is when we were hanging out and like almost unprompted was just like you ever seen ? Buffalo 66 ? Fuck that movie . I could only get five minutes into it and I had to turn it off , oh my fucking God . And I was like okay .
I really loved that movie in high school but , in fairness , it was 1997 and I was 16 and I haven't seen it since then and I'm happy to leave it there .
He's so disgusting .
Yeah , Anyway , I think that's it for this episode of Blood House . If you liked this , please
¶ Promotion and Upcoming Event
rate it . Wherever you listen to podcasts , You can email us at Blood HousePod at Gmail . You can follow us on Twitter , Instagram at Blood HousePod Tracella .
Where are you ? You can go find my work over at sisterhidedesigncom . There's new stuff up there . You can find the poster for Julio Torres' featured debut . Featured directorial debut Problemista . I don't wait to see that From A24 . It's so fun with Isabella Rossellini and Tilda Swinton . I was so so honored to be able to work with a poster for that .
That's a promo website . More stuff is coming soon . You can also find me on Instagram at hide sister , and I'm occasionally on Twitter yelling at trans folks .
Where are you , josh ? Twitter , instagram and Letterbox at Joshua Conkel , and yeah , what's next week ?
Next week we are going to take a very pious trip out to the Great Salt Lake to see what's going on over that old salt hair pavilion as we watch her carves . American independent classic . Carnival of Souls .
Ooh , la la .