Review of Holy Motors (2012) by Mike N — 09 Feb 2013

Holy Motors is a bizarre, confounding thing of a film, maddening in its ambition, its scope and its imagery. Its also an astoundingly brilliant expressionist scattershot of vignettes that are interconnected by a central character and a central message.

One cannot even attempt to say what the film means, only what the film means to them. Every vignette is a metaphor for the state of cinema, what the vignettes add up to is a separate metaphor for the state of cinema, what you the viewer enjoy and don't enjoy is yet another metaphor for the state of cinema and so forth.

The film isn't so much a puzzle to be solved but a mandala of metaphors, an object to be observed with an open mind, one that shuts out judgements or interpretations, to let the images sink in and be comprehended hours or days after the fact.

Its a film which can be revisited again and again as homage, as satire, as drama, as science fiction. As a mockery of the absurdity to which cinema has sunk, or the absurdity it had always been. Denis Lavant deserves a fair chunk of praise for his role as Mr.

Oscar, the "actor" of the variety of "real life movies" (I can only assume that's what they are), which forces him to take on at least 10 different distinct characters within one film.

Mr. Oscar's driver being played by Edith Scob could be attributed to a love for the French cinema of yesteryear, or perhaps a statement on our reverence for "the classics" and our attempts to constantly revive them.

Or perhaps Ms. Scob's casting has more to do with her most famous role, Eyes Without A Face, and how that title might relate to the modern audience. It's not that there's no real way of knowing, it's simply that there is nothing to "know".

Just things to understand. Holy Motors isn't made for an audience so much as each individual viewer. Anyone who sits down for Holy Motors has the pleasure of Leos Carax hurling an innumerable amount of images and ideas at them, and seeing what sticks.

It's highly unlikely any two people will leave the theatre with the same interpretation, and in this cinematic landscape of criticism and academia, its rare that that's ok. With Holy Motors, it's more than ok, it's intended.

There's nothing to "get right", but there are so many things to "get".