Holy Motors
Director: Leos Carax
Screenplay: Leos Carax
Starring: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob
Year: 2012
Language: French, English
UK rental release: January 2013
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Leos Carax has had a 13 year hiatus from feature length films, and with Holy Motors he returns with a wallop! As one of the standout pieces at last year's Cannes Film Festival (competing for the Palme d'Or against Michael Haneke's Amour), it's a unique film which challenges themes of life, death and re-birth, and of how these philospohies are affected by a manipulating and demanding media.
We open on a sleeping audience, ignoring what's being projected on screen as they contently stay in a cinematic slumber. Our director awakens in a strange room at the back of the theatre, who through escaping arrives at a vista of the sleeping viewers, non-plussed by the scenes set before them. He peruses the setting, only to ponder on it's meaning...
Enter Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant, Tuvalu, Beau Travail), a professional who's business is to portray strongly characterised performances. He has
a number of mysterious appointments set before him, each of them designed in a manner
set by unknown clients. Monsieur Oscar has only moments to absorb what he can before taking all manner of guises in order to complete these designated missions and, as a "method" businessman, he will embody a different persona for each appointment in order to succeed.
Sometimes he's an old lady beggar, or a mo-cap performer, or a crazed "Fagin-like" flower eating vagrant, or an old man dying in a hotel...he even makes time to portray the odd ad-lib. Whatever the scenario, he must don the character chosen for him, living and breathing each person as if they are real...but maybe they are?!
He is chauffeured around the city of Paris to undergo his missions by his driver and associate, Céline (Edith Scob, Eyes Without A Face, Summer Hours). She is a calming element in his life, and the only true constant in his surreal existence. Keeping him on track, she is his security blanket, always there at the start and end of each role he inhabits.
But where does Monsieur Oscar's life truly start or end? Is his whole existence just an act? All he knows is that when he has completed his appointments, there will be a new day to come; a new life and new jobs to live.
Holy Motors is prime example of the impressive evolution of art house over the years. Thanks to Leos Carax's brilliance and originality here, we are treated to a cocktail of electrifying scenarios that you would expect to share the same celluloid.
What Carax does here is put us in the position of his clients, purveying his wares through the performances of Monsieur Oscar; the city of Paris his stage, his limousine is his backstage, his execution of each role his product. It's a unique selling point, allowing us to partake as the third party character in the film and it sets us firmly in the hot seat, experiencing each alternate act as a true viewer.
The roller coaster of feelings that his technique provides is thanks to the structure. Holy Motors is, in some way, a portmanteau piece, majoring in as many unique vignettes as it can to exercise its incredible versatility. Where art house appears to be the spine of the picture, a multitude of other genres represent the surrounding organs: drama, comedy, thriller, erotica, horror, romance, musical. Each genre assigns itself to a particular segment, for example, surrealist horror comedy would be a suitable classification for the flower eating maniac portion of the movie.
Although it is a true medley, a vibrant air of core theatrical presence is constantly at the forefront thanks to some both excellently peculiar and geniously touching portrayals. The cameo's from both Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue fit surprisingly well, and Edith Scob is modestly effecting as Céline. But there's no ignoring the incredible delivery by Denis Lavant. His array of performances are outstandingly lavish, and you cannot dispute the powerful rendition of the role, and subsequent others, that he embarks on. Sometimes subtle, other times extravagant, Lavant has shrewdly laid out the complex character of Monsieur Oscar with exquisite execution.
Somehow, the nature of his character's career excuses the bizarre blend of variable shorts. If not for this fact, it would be difficult to forgive what would otherwise be a film suffering from a lack of seamlessness, which it thankfully it does not. Thanks to Lavant's performances and Carax's structuring of the tale everything fits perfectly. It's a refreshing method of storytelling paired with some striking camera works. When considering the body of work from our helmer, unsurprisingly it's visually breathtaking, like someone's injected David Lynch with Van Gogh hormones. Also, some of the more interesting shots are not all about symbolism either; they are just as much filled with equally artistic expressions for our visual delight, fulfilling our retinal appetite at every corner.
Our audial thirst is taken care of too. In order to ground some of the key sections of the picture, an interesting choice of using known classical pieces strewn amongst the scenes not only breathes an air of familiarity to the piece but also gives extra sensitivity to the material. Even the dramatic theme from 1954's Gojira (Godzilla) is put to good use here (some of the heads out there will recognise it as the anthem sampled for a well known track by hip hop artist Pharoahe Monch) ramping up the thrills in one of the main vignettes in the story. The interlude section is the most enjoyable however - one of his appointments and a wonderful interval amidst the madness.
Some of these chapters are incredibly smart too, proposing some interesting dilemmas and themes: it riffs on the current views of the changes in today's media and the desires of our recent viewing public, the likes of which may favour You Tube as their conventional screen of entertainment. As technology advances, even in photographic capture, what lengths would we expect our performers to go to in order to keep us amused, thrilled, bedazzled and awed? At certain moments it raises questions of the reality of death and how we perceive it as either finality or a transitional moment. This also includes proposed theories on re-birth, of how it can manifest in small life journeys or in a literal sense.
These combined philosophical musings tied to the visual treats in store poise inquisitive views while on the journey with Mr Oscar. Are we all just living in a thread of acts and scenes for someone else's amusement? Who really controls our actions? Are we making decisions on these moments for ourselves of the pleasure of others? It takes a adept hand to managed all of the elements I promote above in the delicate manner that Leos Carax has done and still leave room for questioning are own direction in this life, who holds the reigns and who are we truly performing for, making Holy Motors, in my opinion, his masterpiece.
Sometimes a film comes along and exceeds your expectations...as rare as these are, I feel that Holy Motors can be truly counted as one of these marvellous gems.
I was amazed by it. Just when you think cinema has covered all of its bases, you can still be awed. A flurry of alternate scenes await you, tailed off with a joyous final scene that, at the end of one of the most original films you will ever see, can still surprise you!
Sensational!
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