Holy Motors: A Review

by Joe

My rating: 5/5

Holy Cow! Holy Motors is so surreal even after thinking about it for three days I still have no idea what I watched. Imagine David Cronenberg and David Lynch teamed up to make a French language film. It's just strange enough, but still tosses a bone to the audience--as if to say, "Don't worry. It'll make sense in the end." But then they never tidy the fucker up. It's still just a beautiful enigma. 

Holy Motors is written and directed by Leos Carax (Tokyo!, Boy Meets Girl [I realize putting the previous directorial efforts should bring up some sort of recognition, but I have no idea what these movies are. It looks like he just did a segment in Tokyo!, and that only looks kind of familiar, but I'm at a loss. Hopefully you're much worldly than I am, and you know of the two titles I picked]) and he briefly appears in the movie at the beginning. Including himself in the cast is another question mark poised among the many head-scratchers. What is the bigger meaning for having the actual director walk out onto the balcony of a packed movie theatre? After Maureen and I watched this we were trying to figure out what the movie was at it's basic plot. I asked her what the significance of his penis was (watch it and you'll get it. Maybe), but she didn't want to think about the deeper symbolism, and wanted to find the surface-level story. I don't think that is possible with this movie. I think the deeper current of meaning is directly affecting what you're watching. You can't come to a solid conclusion about the basic plot without thinking about what all the small nuances signify. 

The movie takes place most commonly in the back of a limo. The car acts as a dressing room for Oscar (Denis Lavant), so he can make quick wardrobe changes for each of his appointments. His appointments are pretty much just vignettes within the movie. Sometimes he's a motion suit actor, or an old woman, or a regular dad. It's like Carax had all these shorts bouncing around his head, but none of them felt fully formed enough to justify making them on their own, so he pulled a limo thread through each of them to make a feature. He puts the pressure on Lavant to play a singular character whose job is to play the parts of many different characters (my personal favorite was the leprechaun bit). Every once in a while he'll throw us the bone, like when Oscar imagines his boss coming down on him. Apparently, Oscar is getting tired of the job and losing his touch.  Nothing more is said about it in the movie, but we can see how tired he is while he goes to each site and has to push himself to complete the work. 

This is a movie about the changing times. It's a movie about the everyday grind, regardless of how interesting your job looks from the outside. It's about...shit, I don't know. It's creepily beautiful and if nothing else, you'll get pulled in with the incredible cinematography. 

Watch this movie. It's at the Magic Lantern Theatre.