Holy Motors (18)

Film

Denis Lavant in Holy Motors

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Tue Sep 25 2012

‘Weird! Weird! It’s so weird!’ That’s not a quote from a punter leaving a screening of French eccentric Leos Carax’s first feature film in 13 years (he’s still best known for 1991’s ‘Les Amants du Pont-Neuf’), though it could be. No, they’re the elated words of an on-screen photographer after encountering perhaps the most alarming of the guises adopted by the film’s shape-shifting anti-hero, Oscar (an astonishing Denis Lavant): this version of Oscar is a Rumpelstiltskin-type grotesque who bites off two of the photographer’s fingers before dragging supermodel Kay-M (good sport Eva Mendes) underground to dine on her hair in the nude.

This is one of many such vignettes in Carax’s hypnotically inscrutable story, a cinematic revolving door constantly entered and exited by Oscar, who may or may not be the subject of an invisibly steered reality show. Or make that a sur-reality show: Oscar inserts himself into a series of role-playing scenarios of escalating outlandishness, his instructions fed to him by a stoic limousine driver (Edith Scob).

A day’s work finds Oscar enacting CGI frottage with an actress in a motion-capture bodysuit; begging on the street dressed as a bent-backed crone; and pursuing an ex-lover (Kylie Minogue, surprisingly affecting) around the ruins of a derelict department store.

Weird, yes. But even at its most absurd (chimps are involved), there’s something tender and truthful about Carax’s hall-of-mirrors irrationality, the sense of an artist so weary of human realities that he has no choice but to twist them into the more beautiful shapes afforded by cinema. By the time Scob references the character she played 62 years ago in the seminal French horror ‘Eyes Without a Face’, you might feel a shiver – it’s hard to say what forces are propelling this ecstatic, idiotic, fizzy, frightening provocation, but we’re moved by them too.

Author: Guy Lodge

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Fri Sep 28, 2012

Duration:

116 mins

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(17 ratings)

My review is below and I wanted to give it five stars but became three by mistake!

John Fri Apr 19
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A film that is moving as it is strange, both emotional and visionary. Best of all, It makes you re-discover your love for cinema. I watched it a week ago and it hasn't left me since.

John Fri Apr 19
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Isn't it simply purgatory?

Norm Sat Apr 13
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WTF?!?!??!!???!!!!!

damianvan Sat Mar 23
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Holy Motors isn't doing anything that other films don't do, or that French meta films didn't do back in the 1960s with the Nouvelle Vague. Nor is Carax's film any more 'personal' or 'autobiographical' than others (all great directors find a way to personalize their work, even if they don't write the scripts). The only difference is that his mechanics and symbolism are conspicuously overt rather than covert. The semiotics are unshielded and liberally plastered across the screen. But Carax's machine isn't more valuable just because we can see the engine that's under the hood. If anything, he has given himself a greater challenge because the 'meta' framing device removes the audience from the text, forcing them to find something more interesting to do with their minds. So, they look for meaning ... and the thing about looking for meaning is that people will find it whether it's there or not. We have an innate need to rationalize and that, if anything at all, is what Carax is successfully highlighting. It's not a bad move, it's just been done before. This is also the kind of piece that thinks all the artist needs to do is ask questions and not to provide answers. However, if the artist does not have a coherent argument or point of view (whether hidden or not) for us to agree with, disagree with or in any way discuss then we are back to rationalization and 'what does it mean?' which is no use to man or beast. So, without any clear meaning (if there was meaning would we wonder what it was?) Holy Motors becomes a beautiful but empty audio-visual experience. Not so much style over substance, but style as substance. In this way Carax is closer to Michael Bay than Truffaut, Goddard or Renoir. Carax, with any luck, would be livid to know something wrote that and genuinely meant it, but then I am livid to think that this cream puff of a film (see Leos? Anyone can be referential) is being lauded as something it's clearly not. If it is a visual poem, then it is an overly long, free-form poem that is sprawling, undisciplined and possibly written by Spike Milligan. I would be more forgiving if it were a short film (which might possibly turn it into a haiku?) but it ain't.

Nicholas Cameron Tue Feb 19
Rated as: 2/5
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Hey man!a0 can\'t help commenting when you minteoned flamenco ;)Last time I went to Barcelona we spent a whole two hours in a small music store talking with the shopkeeper about Flamenco.a0I know nothing about Fado but Flamenco can be really deep too! Other than being the amazing fusion of music and dance, its less well known side of portraying the Southern Spain lifestyle is real moving.a0 Let\'s exchange notes!!

Hey man!a0 can\'t help co Tue Dec 11 2012
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Sentimental French wacky. You've been warned.

Phil Ince Sat Nov 10 2012
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Weirdest film I've seen since Eraserhead. I think I enjoyed it but I know I didn't understand any of it.

mo Mon Oct 29 2012
Rated as: 3/5
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Phenomenal. Fascinating. Joyous. Horrifying. Incredible. Fun. Beautiful.

David Mon Oct 22 2012
Rated as: 5/5
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Baffling and brilliant. It's still playing with my head days after, and how many films do that? Just enjoy the ride.

Kent Mon Oct 22 2012
Rated as: 5/5
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Holy Motors (18)

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