Holy MotorsYou can't spell "artifice" without "art". Holy Motors begins with an image of a body builder working out, a scene portrayed on the silver screen for the audience in some unnamed theater. It is effectively "performance art", where the depiction of an activity is designed to provoke a response via direct or indirect means. This philosophy of turning oneself into the focus of artistic expression is the same philosophy which drives "Mr. Oscar" (Denis Lavant), the enigmatic master of disguise, who transforms himself again and again to take part in varied walks of life; but for whose benefit? Who is his audience?
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Holy Motors is a surreal drama, and one of the defining characteristics of surrealism is a "dream-like" quality, a fantasy. Unsurprisingly, shortly after the opening montage in the theater, a man referred to as "The Sleeper"--played by the director, Leos Carax--moves from his dream and into a secret door into the theater where our story unfolds, itself still strange and fantastic. Oscar is introduced as a powerful man, which makes his frequent chameleon-like transformations into a variety of both ordinary and bizarre personae so disorienting. He and his driver, Céline (Édith Scob), talk briefly about an "agency" who employs Oscar, and a stranger--likely an agent from this group--appears before him at one point in Oscar's impossibly large limousine turned dressing room, and confronts him about his level of dedication to his craft. And just what craft would that be? For all of the staged scenes and apparently dissonant narrative vignettes, Oscar appears to be taking part in a kind of "live action role-playing" broadcast; he comments on how the cameras--which used to be as big as one's head--are now invisible, always watching, waiting for him--and others like him--to perform their roles for their invisible audience. Although moments in his experience are occasionally painful and sometimes even graphic, the diminished definition between what is real and what is fantasy leaves the audience guessing--that is the audience of Holy Motors, although no doubt also true for the "audience" hinted at being the collective in the theater at the start of the film.
The constant stream of artifice is so immersive, that key moments leave us unsure as to their authenticity, yet we have no choice but to go along for the ride. Take the scene where Oscar confronts a banker in a warehouse, appears to kill him, then tries to disguise the corpse to look like him. When the corpse miraculously wakes up--and stabs Oscar in an identical fashion--we cut away, only to see what must be one of the bodies emerge from the warehouse, wounded but alive. The fact is that given the symmetry of the attack, there is, in fact, no way to know for sure just who emerged from the warehouse; Carax intentionally withholds this clue to keep the mystery fresh in our minds, and keep us off-balance. And consider the moment where Oscar (if it is Oscar by this point) crosses paths with a woman he knew from his past named Jean (Kylie Minogue), calling herself "Eva" for an act she is putting on in the same fashion as Oscar. So when their wistful reunion suddenly prompts Jean/Eva to break out into an impromptu song, it's less of a question if the scene is staged, but whether it is staged so that Oscar is playing himself, or a character modeled after himself. It also leaves the audience without the comforts of knowing whether even the gruesome conclusion is authentic, considering in another scene, even the old-man-on-his-deathbed confessional melodrama is quickly revealed as a stage, when following Oscar's "death", he sits up and politely excuses himself from the lonely hotel room.
Holy Motors is a self-aware film for the filmmaker, which stars a regular in his films, Denis Lavant, playing another versatile actor in the form of Oscar. Denis Lavant and Leos Carax previously worked together in The Lovers on the Bridge, which features the Pont-Neuf bridge, which is also visible from the top of the Samartine building in the scene with Oscar and Jean. There is a sense that the purpose of Oscar's embodiment of these different people is of a sociological nature, appearing as many different people in diverse situations...the "faces of France". This multifaceted identity recalls the British comedy, The Magic Christian, where the quintessential master of theatrical disguise, Peter Sellers, performed in a fashion not dissimilar to Oscar's routine. Some of Oscar's characters appear mundane by comparison, such as his portrayal of a disappointed father, but illuminate that his job is as an entertainer via his performances; not everyone wants sex and violence all the time...sometimes a down-to-earth drama is more satisfying for the right audience. Perhaps his performance as a motion-capture stuntman makes this the most clear, illustrating how virtual reality and reality as we know it are only different in the eye of the beholder. And yet there is no doubt that absurdity is a current which runs through the veins of Holy Motors. Oscar's persona of "Monsieur Merde"--another self-referential nod to Carax and Lavant's prior collaboration in anthology film called Tokyo!--is one of an unintelligible, unkempt, and even violent madman who roams through the sewers, his green suit and red hair giving him the appearance of a schizo leprechaun. His abduction of a fashion model called "Kay M." (Eva Mendes) echoes "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", save that Oscar "saves" Kay not from hanging, but from appearing on the cover of "Wave" magazine. Even the gravestones depicted in this part of Holy Motors seem demented to match Monsieur Merde, carved not with names of the deceased, but with advertisements to view the departed's website. And even when the show has ended, and Oscar's limousine is parked at the "Holy Motors" limo garage, the following discourse about the events in the film mirrors that kind of talk which theater goers sometimes engage in as they walk out of the darkened cinema, sharing their thoughts and discuss the movie...which makes one wonder: who was a vehicle for whom?
Recommended for: Fans of a strange, thought-provoking, and surreal movie about the malleability of identity and the responsibility of the performer to transform himself into the illusion of reality. It is a commentary about the escalation of demands on entertainers in an effort to sate our increasingly ravenous palate.
The constant stream of artifice is so immersive, that key moments leave us unsure as to their authenticity, yet we have no choice but to go along for the ride. Take the scene where Oscar confronts a banker in a warehouse, appears to kill him, then tries to disguise the corpse to look like him. When the corpse miraculously wakes up--and stabs Oscar in an identical fashion--we cut away, only to see what must be one of the bodies emerge from the warehouse, wounded but alive. The fact is that given the symmetry of the attack, there is, in fact, no way to know for sure just who emerged from the warehouse; Carax intentionally withholds this clue to keep the mystery fresh in our minds, and keep us off-balance. And consider the moment where Oscar (if it is Oscar by this point) crosses paths with a woman he knew from his past named Jean (Kylie Minogue), calling herself "Eva" for an act she is putting on in the same fashion as Oscar. So when their wistful reunion suddenly prompts Jean/Eva to break out into an impromptu song, it's less of a question if the scene is staged, but whether it is staged so that Oscar is playing himself, or a character modeled after himself. It also leaves the audience without the comforts of knowing whether even the gruesome conclusion is authentic, considering in another scene, even the old-man-on-his-deathbed confessional melodrama is quickly revealed as a stage, when following Oscar's "death", he sits up and politely excuses himself from the lonely hotel room.
Holy Motors is a self-aware film for the filmmaker, which stars a regular in his films, Denis Lavant, playing another versatile actor in the form of Oscar. Denis Lavant and Leos Carax previously worked together in The Lovers on the Bridge, which features the Pont-Neuf bridge, which is also visible from the top of the Samartine building in the scene with Oscar and Jean. There is a sense that the purpose of Oscar's embodiment of these different people is of a sociological nature, appearing as many different people in diverse situations...the "faces of France". This multifaceted identity recalls the British comedy, The Magic Christian, where the quintessential master of theatrical disguise, Peter Sellers, performed in a fashion not dissimilar to Oscar's routine. Some of Oscar's characters appear mundane by comparison, such as his portrayal of a disappointed father, but illuminate that his job is as an entertainer via his performances; not everyone wants sex and violence all the time...sometimes a down-to-earth drama is more satisfying for the right audience. Perhaps his performance as a motion-capture stuntman makes this the most clear, illustrating how virtual reality and reality as we know it are only different in the eye of the beholder. And yet there is no doubt that absurdity is a current which runs through the veins of Holy Motors. Oscar's persona of "Monsieur Merde"--another self-referential nod to Carax and Lavant's prior collaboration in anthology film called Tokyo!--is one of an unintelligible, unkempt, and even violent madman who roams through the sewers, his green suit and red hair giving him the appearance of a schizo leprechaun. His abduction of a fashion model called "Kay M." (Eva Mendes) echoes "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", save that Oscar "saves" Kay not from hanging, but from appearing on the cover of "Wave" magazine. Even the gravestones depicted in this part of Holy Motors seem demented to match Monsieur Merde, carved not with names of the deceased, but with advertisements to view the departed's website. And even when the show has ended, and Oscar's limousine is parked at the "Holy Motors" limo garage, the following discourse about the events in the film mirrors that kind of talk which theater goers sometimes engage in as they walk out of the darkened cinema, sharing their thoughts and discuss the movie...which makes one wonder: who was a vehicle for whom?
Recommended for: Fans of a strange, thought-provoking, and surreal movie about the malleability of identity and the responsibility of the performer to transform himself into the illusion of reality. It is a commentary about the escalation of demands on entertainers in an effort to sate our increasingly ravenous palate.