Holy Motors (2012)

"Holy Motors" begins with Monsieur Oscar (Denis Levant), a middle-aged Parisian man, in the back of a functionally tricked-out limousine. His assistant/driver hands him a folder, the first of today's jobs, and he begins to transform himself into an old woman. Out on the street, Oscar passes himself off as a poor, begging, old woman, conning the passers- by. But is it really a con if he doesn't get any money?

That is just one of many questions that can go through one's head as you attempt to follow this film. And just one of the many unanswered questions that becomes increasingly frustrating the further you get through this film. "Holy Motors" has been described as a day in the life of a con-man. Too bad he's not a con-man. The second and third segments, involving Oscar in a luminescent, body movement/sexual performance and then infiltrating a model's photo-shoot as a crazy man, make it clear that Oscar is in fact a street performer/actor/hit-man. But apparently only those who like and "get" this film will see how he's an actor. That's the type of pretentiousness this film promotes.

Each segment is unrelated, connected only by Oscar transforming himself for his next job in the back of his limousine; which makes the majority of the film completely pointless. At one point, we are supposed to care for Oscar (who knows when that connection occurred) because one segment features Oscar with a similar street performer/actor, presumably a former love interest. In this segment they sing a song called "Who Were We When We Were Who We Were?" I think that type of verbose nonsense speaks for itself.

The make-up work actually was quite phenomenal; visually, Oscar was truly a different person in each segment. Story-wise, Oscar was a different person in each segment, which makes the film extremely non-cohesive. At the end, the film pretends that they presented ideas about the future of society, the isolated nature of individuals, and the life of an actor, but there wasn't a single coherent idea in that film. It was all very meaningless.

Fmovies: We follow a day in the life of Monsieur Oscar being driven around Paris in a white stretch limo by Céline (his driver and secretary), who ferries him around from one 'appointment' to another. To get full enjoyment from this film stop there and watch it. Anything else you read may spoil or confuse and may not be entirely accurate.

For those intrigued to know more... Each one of Oscar's appointments could be played as its own short film. We realise that the limo is full of masks, make-up and costumes for Oscar to change his appearance to fulfil his role at each appointment. Throughout the film he changes his character about ten times to be different people, these include an old beggar woman, a powerful business man, a dying millionaire, a murderer, a kidnapper, a CGI snake, an angry uncle and husband to a chimp family. The film doesn't explain what or why each of these appointments are carried out although the audience is given a few hints to form their own conclusions. However 'why' is really not the point here, accepting that he just does makes the experience much more enjoyable. It's simply amazing to watch our character step into a completely different role and make it convincing. The argument he has with his young niece (if it's actually his young niece) is sheer brilliance, but somewhat disturbing at the same time. The character is convincing but it's not clear what is real and what isn't. This is all down to Denis Lavant as our main character and Leos Carax for some superb direction. In addition we are treated to some short but touching set pieces by Eva Mendes and Kylie.

This is essentially an art-house film, but unlike unlike other such films this is full of comedy, some subtle and some proper laugh-out-loud moments. Meaning it never takes itself too seriously and never talks down to the audience. The audience is definitely a needed extension to this film, especially if you allow yourself to be drawn in and experience the journey.

This is certainly very Lynchian and recommended for any fans of his work. After leaving the cinema I was still very caught-up in the world that Carax had created. I had the same feeling after watching Inland Empire and to a certain extent Cosmopolis.

I tend to be a harsh critic, but I really can't think of anything I didn't like. Kylie dropped in a song which could have been cringe-worthy, but actually worked well. Even the talking limos were there as comedy value rather than to annoy. As for plot holes, not only would it be impossible to find one, but also rather pointless as this film goes beyond that conventional way of thinking.

This is art done well; more please!

Keep thinking. That's all you got to do to enjoy this movie. If you're unaware, it's predictable that you will not be able to keep up with Carax. He sends us into a sinister, dark Paris which features the typical sights, but nevertheless is eerily empty. It is a Paris from the eyes of a blind man, who opens the doors to a cinema for us in a great overture.

Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is not the kind of character who would be considered "stereotype". On the other hand, the roles Monsieur Oscar has to play are classically "stereotype":

1st: The Politician 2nd: The Beggar 3rd: The Motion Capture Artist 4th: The Lunatic 5th: The Killer 6th: The Killed 7th: The Vagabond 8th: The Killer 9th: The Killed 10th: The dying old Man 11th: The melodramatic Lover 12th: The Loser

Why does he play these characters? In a linear explanation, it is said that Monsieur Oscar is an actor. Sure - otherwise he would not die and resurrect again and again, otherwise there would be more tumult around him kidnapping a famous model. Cameras have become tiny over the years, they are not visible anymore. "Holy Motors" works as a film within a film, especially the idea that our lives work the same way (different roles, different people, loneliness, dissatisfaction) is intriguing.

However, there is more to "Holy Motors". The blind man in the cinema, who is played by Carax, for example (I know Carax always wears sunglasses. But remember the blind artist in "Les Amants du Pont Neuf". There's something to it). It is him who imagines all those splendid, heroic and visually unique characters. And is Leos Carax' vision a parable to mankind (we're helpless, we're driven, we're mad, we're vagabonds, we're lovers - we're actors)? Less radically said: All those different shades are within us. Then there's a comment to media: Where are the cameras? Everywhere. I think, the most important conversation takes place between M. Oscar and "his daughter" (?) and reveals another possible interpretation, maybe the overall message of "Holy Motors". The conversation: The daughter was ashamed of herself and did not dance at a party. Embarrassed of this, she did not tell her dad the truth. Consequently, he had to punish her. M. Oscar's punishment is that the girl must be herself and be happy with it, something he seemingly never could manage. Something we must not give up trying.

Holy Motors fmovies. This film is intensely strange and profoundly beautiful. It will also stay with you and make you think for awhile after viewing (if you let it). Even for the sheer beauty of the shots, which combine the technical precision of someone who truly understands lighting and optics with the poetic abstraction of a surrealist painting, this film is worth watching. The images themselves are compelling, and you see things that are even just visually fascinating (for instance, the black on black shooting for the motion-capture sequence).

The film does not make sense in the straight-forward and explicit ways that audiences might anticipate from a film narrative. I even exclaimed during certain parts of the film, "That can't happen!" or "That doesn't make sense!" Regardless, there is an undertone to this film that is striking, intense, and that feels really valuable. It addresses the multiplicity of modes and forms with which people can exhibit or express themselves in the world and begs the question of what, then, remains constant -- is there really any unifying perspective? And what happens to this perspective as the moment of death encroaches?

I would be thrilled to discuss this film in an open forum with others who were open to really imploring it because I definitely feel that there is a lot there to explore and ponder. Lastly, I will argue that despite its wackiness, this film is thoroughly entertaining. Even when it may elude you, I suspect you won't be "bored" per-say, but maybe just give up on it.

I know that a lot of reviewers of this film had criticized those who raved about it for being overly pretentious. There is absolutely nothing pretentious about enjoying art that is really strange or non-sensical to others. Finding beauty or love in something and enjoying it is always a lovely and inspired reaction for anyone to have to anything, regardless of how others feel about it.

The criticism I'm hearing most about "Holy Motors" is that it's about nothing. That it means nothing. That they - the unhappy viewer - needs more from their movies than random events strewn together without logic. As if the road to nowhere is not interesting in and of itself to them. It makes me wonder, why don't we expect our concept of narrative to be challenged more in the movies we consume? Why don't we put forth as much effort in confronting art, as the artist has put forth in confronting us?

"Holy Motors" is, to me, an act of filmic hypnosis. It made the cinema lover in me immediately and deeply happy from frame one (and not just because it references so much cinema of the past and critiques trends in the cinema of the present). I appreciate that film is not simply just another way of telling a story. Film is painting with light. It features human beings at play. It is design and photography and fashion and imagination. Of all the things cinema embraces... story is just a single element. So how did it become the MOST important element? Or, even more baffling to me, when did our idea of story itself become so tepid?

The story in "Holy Motors" is writ large. It scans like a modern myth. Like the oldest stories the human race tells. It features improbable and fantastical things happening along a journey. Its protagonist is a modern Ulysses trekking through the strange and fabled land of human experience, always searching for home. It is the only story ever told. And yet, again and again I hear people say that the movie has no narrative. No character they can connect to. No meaning.

Just because director Leos Carax is playful and tenuous with "meaning" doesn't mean it's not there. This is a film that is both about the drudgery and the exhilaration of creating for a living. It follows a day in the life of an artist. An artist always on the move. Sometimes that artist is tired, sometimes inspired, sometimes longing, sometimes exactly in the right place at the right time.

A friend I saw it with was bored. I still can't even understand how that's possible. Here's a movie in which anything can happen. In which any image can be juxtaposed with any other. In which the central architecture is not some obscuring three-act structure built out of a tired overplayed premise, but instead, is a careening litany of virtually every possible premise available. It readily teeters from overindulgent spectacle to tiny truth and back again as it explores, but never fusses over, the role of new technology in cinema, complications of identity, the strange job of acting for a living and so much more...

Most importantly though, the movie is about being on the job. The job of being human. Doing the work of being alive.

And we, the viewer, we work too. We work for meaning in the dark of the theater. We work to help fashion the story. To find the true character at the center of the experience. To understand where the human heart falls in all this flailing, anything-goes madness.

Life is work. Art is work. Observing is work. Isn't that beautiful?

"Cinema is a territory. It exists outside of movies. It's a place I live in. It's a way of seeing things, of experiencing life. But making films, that's supposed to be a profession." - Leos Carax

It's going to be difficult to keep this short.

One of the darlings of the 2012 festival circuit, Leos Carax's Holy Motors delivers a pure cinematic experience designed to confront and challenge our understanding of the art form at every level. At the risk of over-simplifying a film that is anything but simple, Holy Motors is a film about the cinema as it stands today, and the deft ways in which Carax explores various aspects of his subject, whether addressing film- makers themselves, we the audience, or even the debate over physical versus digital media, are so rich and dense that it is impossible to absorb it all after a single viewing. As such it is sure to alienate and infuriate perhaps the majority of viewers, yet those who find themselves swept up in the abstract beauty of it all are in for an inspiring, enlightening, and at times overwhelming two hours.

Holy Motors follows a day in the life of Monsieur Oscar (a mind-boggling Denis Lavant), an actor whose roles seem to take place out in the real world rather than on the stage or screen. As Oscar is ferried from one assignment to the next by his faithful limousine driver Céline (Edith Scob), so too does writer-director Carax transport us to his next discussion point. Each surreal vignette is presented without much in the way of explanation, and Carax refuses to hold the hand of the audience, instead offering viewers the chance to piece the film together themselves. Similarly, Lavant's remarkable performance can turn without warning, shifting the entire film's tone from tragic to comical at a moment's notice, further disorienting the audience. While some of Oscar's 'roles' have illuminating punchlines to ease our understanding, the majority are much more conceptual, and will demand repeat viewings to unpack before Carax's intentions for the piece as a whole will become clear, if they ever will.

In a year where chatter surrounding huge tent-pole releases is choking social media and online communities, Holy Motors is the film that most deserves to be discussed, and debates about the film amongst cinéastes are likely already in full swing. While the audience who will really connect with the film is going to be comparatively small, nothing has offered this much to chew on for some time, and its value to those who appreciate it will only increase over time. Holy Motors cannot really be approached effectively in a brief review such as this, as it's not exactly an easy film to recommend or not given that each individual could potentially take something different from seeing it. But for those seeking a respite from the mindlessness of blockbuster season, seeing Holy Motors is a no-brainer. Carax almost forces the audience into an intellectual tug-of-war without ever feeling like he is talking down to us, rather that he wants us to reconsider the world of cinema, and not least of all our own place in it.

tinribs27.wordpress.com