Holy Motors

Holy Motors (2012)

A bizarre (and highly praised) film that is ambitious and inventive to the point of pain. I wish it was as brilliant as it intends. As we follow the leading character Oscar through a series of seemingly unconnected events, it struck me that the goal is simply to stage these odd moments, almost choreographed surreal adventures where he takes on different personae (with elaborate costumes). The events don't achieve what you might call depth or meaning. They are interesting—how could they fail on that score?—yet interesting turns out to be not enough.

Still, look for high style throughout, some terrific underworld insanity, some unfiltered sex and violence, and lots and lots of pretense. I have a feeling there are some people who might rate this among their favorite films and so I'd say give this a try. It might take half an hour to know whether the changing roles and scenes (and the self-indulgence) will keep you sustained.

Since Oscar is shuttled from one location to another in a stretch limo, you get the feeling he might just be a filthy rich eccentric who refuses to be bored with life. He admits he started doing this (every day, we get the sense) for "the beauty of the act," and this high level of aesthetic tension seems insufficient for the depravity involved.

This is a French-German enterprise, set in Paris. It has enough quiet moments to make you impatient, but from the pause it will take off on another romp. The actor has to be admired, for sure—Denis Levant, known for his boundary pushing roles (from Shakespeare to experimental film). The director, Leos Carax is likewise associated with the avant garde —and with Levant. But they have tried to keep their grand experiment traditionally cinematic, as well, so there are lots of ways to appreciate what's going on. The filming is sublime, the ambiance from lighting to set design is gorgeous.

There is that dangerous point in a art when a work gets so serious it demands of itself a kind of perfect to succeed. And there are so many little holes here, even some odd moments in the acting, it becomes almost laughable. At times. Which is too bad. There is a lot here to take quite seriously, I think. Then again, maybe it's meant to be an absurdist dark comedy all the way. Which means we're allow to laugh after all. Go for it.

Leos Carax comes back after a 13 year hiatus to present us with a beautifully weird, absurdist film, which is both 'a tribute to cinema' as well as 'an ode to film (celluloid)'. It doesn't have a linear story or much of a plot, and doesn't make much sense in its entirety. But there's something oddly delightful about it, and keeps you intrigued till the very end. It is unlike anything one has seen before. There are various film references in the movie which would keep cinephiles amazed.

Shakespeare says, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts." This movie is like a literal adaptation of that text; it follows an actor named Mr. Oscar, who dons one role after the other, in actual settings, in front of seemingly invisible cameras. It compares an actor's roles to real-life roles, and the themes tackled are similar too - love, sex, despair, death, etc. And in his journey, we also come across various genres of films.

What does it mean to be an actor? How is it costing one? Till what does one have to go to make it feel authentic? These are just few of the questions it makes us wonder. And other than the screenplay, it's the brilliant performance of talented actor Denis Lavant that makes us wonder that. All the sequences have something to offer; they move you, make you laugh, or make you think.

Few notable film references: - 'Mon Oncle' (the interior of first house) - 'Lovers on the Bridge' (Beggar sequence, La Samaritaine) - 'Mauvais Sang' (motion-capture sequence with red & white lines scrolling in the background) - 'Tokyo!' (the pseudo-leprechaun Merde; he also eats sushi before performing it) - monster movies like 'King Kong' and 'Godzilla' (Merde picking up the model; the original score from 'Godzilla') - 'Underground' (Accordion scene) - 'Breathless' (The name 'Jean', as in Jean Seberg, Kylie Minogue's hairstyle, the mention about lost baby, suicidal tendency) - 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' (Kylie's singing sequence) - 'Cremaster 5' (Kylie's dive backwards from the building) - 'Max Mon Amour' (being married to monkey) - 'Eyes Without a Face' (the same actress, the same mask), which is both 'a tribute to cinema' as well as 'an ode to film (celluloid)'. It doesn't have a linear story or much of a plot, and doesn't make much sense in its entirety. But there's something oddly delightful about it, and keeps you intrigued till the very end. It is unlike anything one has seen before. There are various film references in the movie which would keep cinephiles amazed.

A bizarre, enigmatic and brave cinematic return to feature film making from Leos Carax, after a 13 year gap, Holy Motors is a self-consciously low budget odyssey of ambiguous, pseudo-linear intentions. After five years attempting to raise funds for a large budget English language film that ultimately fell through, Carax turned his attentions on a native language film with a smaller cost, and was inspired when observing the many limousines driving around Paris. Regular collaborator Denis Lavant plays the mysterious Monsiuer Oscar, who is driven around the city in the white stretched vehicle, taking him to the variety of "appointments" of the day. The appointments appear to be a series of acting jobs, where Mr Oscar dresses up for the multitude of roles.

From a dishevelled gypsy woman, - through a banker, and a dying millionaire - to a crazed vagabond who kidnaps a fashion model, Kay M. (Eva Mendes), Oscar glides through the day and into the night, changing his appearance with make-up and prosthetics, fulfilling his duty to a mysterious company, accomplishing the jobs he is given information through files in the back of the car. In other scenarios Oscar is dressed in a black leotard with white dots, as he enters a very industrialised building where he performs a motion-capture dance and highly sexualised duo with a red-clad blond woman, as it turns into the serpentine CGI creation; in another, Oscar joins his 2 point 4 family unit, which consist of chimpanzees.

Whilst Carax takes many stylistic references from David Lynch, the film also offers a quite unique sense of humour. In one scene, Oscar is playing a dying rich man, who has his step-niece beside him in his last moments. After dying, Oscar climbs from the bed, the niece still sobbing into the covers, he turns back to ask the girls name, and offering apologies for his swift exit: "I have to get to another appointment" he states, which is returned with the reply that she also needs to leave for another appointment (It's funnier on screen than in writing - and certainly after the incredibly moving moments of death). It's a jarring punch-line to a heartfelt moment. Small details of technological modernity invade the mis-en-scene, for example, when Oscar is the vagabond, he wildly runs through a cemetery eating flowers, each gravestone has its own www.address.

Holy Motors is without question a film about film, and film making, offering allusions to Jean Cocteau and Jean-Luc Godard. Fundamentally though, this film seems to evoke another French original, Georges Franju, whose film Eyes Without a Face (1960) is highly referenced. Edith Scob (who played the masked victim in the film), drives Mr Oscar around, and actually reprises her role, and hides her face once again under the mask. The mysterious events in the film could also be regarded as a comment on changing nature of cinematic production. From the motion capture sequence to the nature of Oscar scatological "job", the film seems to lament the loss of real cinema - Carax filmed in digital video (a format that he hates) for budgetary reasons.

What is so beautiful about this mode of cinema is the complexity of meaning. This is film so dense in symbolism that it requires repeat viewings. Whether it's about the changing face of cinema, the acting profession, or an exploration of the nature of identity (Oscar could represent the many faces that we have to put on each day, in the performance of life, and our increasing need to compartmentalise each element of our lives), it doesn't really matter what the directors true intentions were. This is cinematic experience at a most cerebral level. We are not given the meaning, but we take from it what we bring to it, and can interpret it how we want. Lavant creates a fantastic, multi- faceted performance, even managing to hold an erect penis in the most unsexy environment ever. Kylie Minogue even manges to be perfectly suited for her small role in which she may have been a past lover of Mr Oscar, she also sings a song written by Carax and Neil Hannon, which enlightens a dingy musical movie moment.

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The first thing to do with this film is to dump the memory of the gushing but rather non-specific praise from critics, the perfect 10 out of 10 scores and the banner "film of the year", because having all of that on the head of the film will really not help it or you. I say this because although it was for critics, the casual viewer will certainly not make this film of the year in the traditional sense, because it is very much an experience. People have said that it is a film that you love or hate (as can be seen in the extreme gushing or spitting in some comments) but for me it is both and neither at once.

The plot (although it is also worth putting that notion out of your head too) is that a man is transported around in a limousine in Paris, being dropped off at different locations to fulfill a series of appointments. If you can get over the ridiculous sight of traffic moving freely in Paris, you will still need to work with the fact that these appointments range from acting like a tramp in the middle of busy street, acting out a weird alien love scene in a mo-cap suit, killing someone and taking their identity, being a frustrated father to a teenage girl and other such random things. These events range hugely in what they did to me. Between different episodes and indeed within different episodes I went from amusement to bemusement; from engaged to bored; from interested to frustrated – and for all of these I also went back the other way in some cases. It is a film that is frustrating and quite good at the same time. It is a total art film and it really has no interest in anyone who expects it to do anything to help the viewer. Personally I dislike this approach although I recognize that some love difference and uniqueness for just those qualities – it working or being good is a distant second.

I really tried to find the meaning in the film but it was too obscured for me and I was too remote for it to get to me. I have read quite a few reviews from those that love the film but they have been generally vague and non-specific in their praise, almost as if they really want to love it for how diverse and unique it is, but aren't able to put their finger on its good qualities despite this. This is not to say that I did not appreciate these qualities as well – just that for me they are not enough. So yes I quite enjoyed creative aspects to it, or some of the events and situations, but generally it just seemed too fragmented, too lacking in anything tangible and ultimately it just felt like it was being difficult and surreal for the sake of it, not as the path to a goal. I'm sure some were thrilled watching the character stand shaking a tin at passing strangers, or exhilarated by two people in mo-cap suits dry humping each other, or entertained by the sight of a silent Eva Mendes abducted by a naked crazy guy with an erection but such things did not work for me. There is something in there I am sure about cinema as we do get reference to cameras and other films, but as I say, it was too little, too obscured for me.

Visually the film has imagination and style, while the performance of Lavant is enthusiastic and committed, but these are not the content. I'm sure Mendes and Minogue both get a little career benefit from being on the inside of such a project, but for Mendes it was a waste although Minogue's section was nicely done. This is not a film for performances though and, outside of Lavant, there really isn't much to talk about. If you enjoy wildly weird and odd films on the basis that they are weird and odd, then you'll like this and will maybe even pat yourself on the back for being clever enough to enjoy it (even if you struggle to put that enjoyment into specific words). However those looking for more will be disappointed and many may hate the film; personally I found aspects to like and much to engage, but ultimately it didn't work for me as a whole and too much worked against it at the same time.

The film is a parade of pseudo-intellectual claptrap, a mere montage of disjointed oddity; it has no direction, it just presents the viewer with one weird, meaningless image after another. I derive no positive emotion from a film that relies solely on ambiguous subtext, surrealism and symbolism.

I began to lose faith in the film by the 40 minute mark, each minute after that began to drag severely. There are scenes that are well acted and quite touching, but when they're thrown into this mess they're completely wasted. Some people have been flabbergasted by the suggestion that it's 'boring', I don't see what's so surprising about that, how can you be engaged by something that's so utterly meaningless?

Some people have praised its imagery, waffling on about how it 'celebrates the medium'. I agree it's striking and unconventional, but that's all it is; the best films achieve in both celebrating the medium of film and delivering strong, engaging narratives, whether they're simple or complex. Any idiot can throw together two hours of sheer meaningless oddity and claim it to be 'metaphorical' - it's weak filmmaking.

Even fans of the film have no idea what's going on, however many of them seem to relish mustering up their own vague, self-aggrandising interpretations of it. Although there are those who genuinely enjoy such ambiguity and have an honest approach to analysing the film, there are many that don't.

These are people who are likely to fiercely defend the film. Typically, they will label the film's critics ignoramuses who need their narratives to be 'spoon-fed' to them. I cringe to think about the scores of obnoxious pseuds who will attempt to revel in the utter poppycock that 'Holy Motors' serves by the shovel load.