LWLies 91: The Titane issue – On sale now!

The lat­est issue of LWLies is par­tic­u­lar­ly close to my heart – or, more accu­rate­ly, my right thigh. After see­ing Julia Ducournau’s incen­di­ary, Palme d’Or-winning Titane at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val back in May, I returned to Lon­don wax­ing lyri­cal about it, and pret­ty soon my col­leagues David and Adam were in agree­ment – we should make it the cov­er film for our November/​December issue.

Smash cut to a month lat­er: I’m sit­ting on a cling­film-cov­ered bed in a Lon­don tat­too stu­dio, wear­ing my Fast & Furi­ous-brand­ed pyja­ma shorts and feel­ing suit­ably self-con­scious as my friend Sophie tat­toos my leg with one of her bespoke designs for our Titane cov­er. All the while, the cam­eras are rolling to cap­ture the event for posterity.

In the spir­it of the film, we knew we want­ed to do some­thing bold for this issue, tied into the themes of trans­for­ma­tion and body mod­i­fi­ca­tion that Titane whole-heart­ed­ly embraces, and when David came up with the idea of a tat­too cov­er, I vol­un­teered. I already had ten tat­toos at the time, so it wasn’t some­thing new for me – though this is the first time quite so many peo­ple will have seen quite so much of me, which is vague­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. Even so, I’m proud to have some part of this glo­ri­ous film become a part of me.

Beyond this being the first issue of LWLies to involve ink­ing human flesh, I’m also moved by how our team of writ­ers and illus­tra­tors rose to the chal­lenge and pro­duced an issue that reach­es beyond the sala­cious head­lines to get to the met­al heart of this extra­or­di­nary and unique film. It’s an explo­ration of cin­e­ma and self, from our fam­i­ly to yours. Buck­le your seat­belt – it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

On the cover

Hack­ney-based tat­tooist and illus­tra­tor Sophie Mo is very much part of the LWLies fam­i­ly, and we were thrilled to final­ly work with her on a cov­er. Work­ing in her sig­na­ture style, she designed a por­trait of Agathe Rous­selle as Alex­ia incor­po­rat­ing visu­al ele­ments of the film, which was then tat­tooed over the course of four hours on Sat­ur­day 26^th Sep­tem­ber at Par­lia­ment Tat­too in Lon­don. A pho­to­graph of the fin­ished tat­too is what you see on the cover.

Illus­tra­tors in this issue include Aaron Lock­wood, Evan­ge­line Gal­lagher, Jenifer Prince, Agnes Ricart and Lucas Pev­er­ill.

In this issue

The Titane Review
Sam Bodro­jan wres­tles with Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or win­ner in our fea­ture review.

Sacred Hearts
Anna Bogut­skaya and Han­nah Strong speak to Julia Ducour­nau and her muse, Agathe Rous­selle, about reli­gion, gen­der and why Titane is actu­al­ly a spir­i­tu­al love story.

L’Homme Du Café
Sophie Monks Kauf­man meets French act­ing titan Vin­cent Lin­don, who extolls the virtues of peo­ple watching.

The Gore Gore Girls
SFX and gore make-up is tra­di­tion­al­ly a man’s world; Mari­na Ash­i­oti meets five women who are chal­leng­ing that perception.

Flesh and Met­al
Kam­bole Camp­bell delves into the weird and won­der­ful world of cin­e­mat­ic met­al fetish, explor­ing Japan­ese cinema’s endur­ing fas­ci­na­tion with bio­me­chan­ics, mecha and modification.

Only Human
David Jenk­ins attempts to track down Mari­na de Van, the elu­sive direc­tor of shock­ing cult hor­ror In My Skin.

Threads #20
Christi­na New­land inves­ti­gates the cin­e­mat­ic his­to­ry of a dead­ly acces­so­ry: the hum­ble hairpin.

In the back section

Ryūsuke Ham­aguchi
Trevor John­ston speaks to the Japan­ese mas­ter about his tran­scen­den­tal new Maruka­mi adap­ta­tion, Dri­ve My Car.

Rebec­ca Hall
Rōgan Gra­ham inter­views Rebec­ca Hall ahead of her direc­to­r­i­al debut Pass­ing, which has a remark­able con­nec­tion to Hall’s family.

Céline Sci­amma
Lil­lian Craw­ford speaks to one of France’s pre­mière film­mak­ers about her sub­lime lat­est, Petite Maman.

Reg­gie Yates
Mari­na Ash­i­oti meets tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty turned film­mak­er Reg­gie Yates, whose fea­ture debut Pirates is a scrap­py Y2K delight.

Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal
The vet­er­an actress turns direc­tor with The Lost Daugh­ter; Han­nah Strong speaks to her about that cre­ative gear change.

In review

Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Dri­ve My Car
Har­ri Shana­han and Sian A Williams’ Rebel Dykes
Paul Andrew Williams’ Bull
Rebec­ca Hall’s Pass­ing
Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter
Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Bang­ing or Loony Porn
Pao­lo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God
Amjad Abu Alala’s You Will Die at 20
Justin Chon’s Blue Bay­ou
Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Lamb
Philip Stevens’ Lap­wing
Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon
Jane Campion’s The Pow­er of the Dog
Pablo Larraín’s Spencer
Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman
Denes Nagy’s Nat­ur­al Light
Moham­mad Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil
Philip Barantini’s Boil­ing Point
Reg­gie Yates’ Pirates
Eva Husson’s Moth­er­ing Sun­day
Reinal­do Mar­cus Green’s King Richard
Michael Pearce’s Encounter
Mag­gie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daugh­ter
Den­nis Hopper’s Out of Blue
Mae West in Hol­ly­wood
Shin­ji Somai’s Sailor Suit and Machine Gun
GW Pabst’s The Love of Jeanne Ney
Shawscope Vol­ume 1
Satya­jit Ray’s Devi

LWLies 91 is avail­able to order online now from our online shop. Become a Mem­ber or sub­scribe today to make sure you nev­er miss an issue.