Holy Motors is so mad, deranged, lunatic, bonkers, cuckoo and away with the fairies that, if you were on a bus, and saw it boarding, you’d pray it didn’t sit next to you, although, knowing your luck, it probably would. That said, maybe you shouldn’t be quite so prissy and stand-offish. This film is a wacky ride, as well as a crazy, insane and off-the-wall one, but it is also peculiarly involving, exhilarating and unforgettable. I am still picking it out of my teeth, as if it were yesterday’s lamb chop, unlike the film I saw last week, whatever it was. (Was it good? Did I like it?)
This is written and directed by the French auteur Leos Carax, who hasn’t made a full-length film for over a decade, and is obviously a bit of a one. (He has, for example, contrived his professional name by combining Alex and Oscar, his first and second names.) His star is Denis Lavant, a wiry fellow with a pugnacious, weather-beaten face who shines not in the one performance, but in 11, or thereabouts. Let me explain, as far as I can, which isn’t very far, but at least I’m showing willing.
Its mood swings from swooningly romantic through to funny, grotesque, sexy and downright sad
Levant is Monsieur Oscar, an inexplicable figure who is inexplicably driven around Paris in a stretch limousine by his driver, Céline (Edith Scob). Monsieur Oscar must, inexplicably, attend a variety of ‘appointments’ around the city and each appointment requires him to transform himself with make-up, wigs, costumes and prosthetics into someone else altogether: a decaying panhandler; a one-eyed beggar who eats graveyard flowers and abducts a supermodel (Eva Mendes); an assassin; a disappointed father; a dying old man; a sci-fi samurai and a family man who, at the end of the film, returns to a wife and child so surprising you will exclaim ‘WTF!’ if you are of a youthful disposition and ‘Heavens to Betsy!’ if not.
One incontrovertible fact: this is a film of visual magnificence and brilliance, with scenes that will get into your head and stay put, whether you like it or not. There is an accordion scene so joyously riotous it might be worth the price of admission alone. (But no popcorn; you have a kitchen at home, why not eat in that?) There is Kylie Minogue, being good in something for once, as an air-stewardess character who sings a forlorn, original song in the wreck of an old department store. And there is a scene where Monsieur Oscar sucks on Eva Mendes’s hair while lying beside her with the biggest erection I have ever seen, and I have seen a few in my time, although not so many lately. (Heavens to Betsy, I’m getting much too old for all that sort of thing!)
But what is it about? Is it a dream? Is Monsieur Oscar an itinerant actor required to take on a variety of roles? Is he being controlled by some agency? Is Kylie’s character some kind of fellow traveller? Is it a cri de coeur against the virtual world? Is it about movie-making itself? Why is it called Holy Motors? Why is there only one kind of milk but so many different kinds of cheeses? (Sorry, that slipped in from something else I’m trying to figure out.) At Cannes, earlier in the year, the Alex Oscar that is now Leos Carax was himself asked what it was all about, to which he replied, ‘I don’t know.’ As far as helpful answers go, this hasn’t made it into my top ten.
Look, although you won’t understand any of this — assuming there is something to understand — this is not an emotionally cold piece of work. Instead, its mood swings from swooningly romantic through to funny, grotesque, sexy and downright sad. Each ‘appointment’ feels self-contained even though there is no closure, and even though there is no closure you are kept narratively involved because that closure often feels so tantalisingly close. I was perplexed. I scratched my head. But I was never bored. This is a bizarre fantasy in which the director does what the hell he likes, yet it still somehow coheres. In short, as we’re busy people, this is a film that out-Lynches David Lynch, and if you can refrain from trying to join the dots, you are in for quite a ride. My advice? Buckle up and go for it. Not everything can be Hope Springs. (That was it! Did I like it?)
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