In most art galleries around the world there is one giant canvas that someone has painted blue. Anyone can slather paint over a canvas, so why has this painting earned wall space and respect over someone who accidentally spilt a paint can over the floor of their garage? Art is forever open to interpretation and that painting might mean the world to someone or an accident to others but you take what you want away from the experience. ‘Holy Motors’ is a “blue canvas” film that requires you to open your mind only for the filmmaker to fart into it.
For 24 hours Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) travels the streets of Paris in a limo going to several different appointments.
Lavant is an absolute powerhouse in ‘Holy Motors’ delivering one of the year’s best performances. He does more in one film than most actors do in their entire career that may be a slight jibe by writer/director Leos Carax at the level of talent on display in most mainstream films.
Carax continues to explore this idea of cinema in disrepute throughout ‘Holy Motors’ (that’s a theory) via a series of episodes or appointments that go from kooky, to crazy, to completely nuts. It feels like Carax is trying to make the point that life is the greatest performance of all and filmmakers have forgotten how to properly capture the human experience on film. It’s a bold undertaking but the narrative is loose, indulgent and completely baffling at different points. It does tickle the brain but thoughts of lost time outweigh anything deeper.
‘Holy Motors’ will mean different things to different people but for me it’s a Tour de Wank.
2/5
‘Holy Motors’ is released:
23 August 2012 Australia
28 September 2012 UK
Cameron Williams
The Popcorn Junkie
I went in open minded and it just did nothing for me. I agree the narrative is completely baffling too, oh well. Great review Cam!
It is NOT a narrative film!! Maybe – just maybe – that’s why you couldn’t absorb it?
I thought it was an extraordinary film. It’s surreal: you either go with it or you don’t.
The audacity of you to compare it to a “blue canvas”. That may be a fitting analogy for, say, a minimalist art house film. But this is anything but blue. Your review proves only that you should stick to the multiplex.
Could not agree more. Lavant is great for sure, but the movie is one big ridiculous French cliche. Its a movie by film studies students for film studies students. There are a few interesting moments and some of the visuals are pleasing. But, overall its a bloated, hackneyed, tiresome movie best left for private showings with an audience comprised of elitist chattering morons in their berets…
Stick with your popcorn Cam. It’s guaranteed to be unchanging, predictable and bland. It won’t let you down, nor will it pick you up.
Love it or hate it, it’s impossible to deny that Holy Motors is one of the least accessible films in recent memory. I admired its ambition, its imagination, its scope, and, like Cam, the extraordinary performance of Denis Lavant, but I couldn’t connect with it. I find it strange that so many people do, given how bizarre it is, but I’m delighted that so many have responded to it so well. I’m just not one of them. And clearly, neither is Cam.
Not everyone who fails to enjoy Holy Motors is someone who can only enjoy multiplex fare. (Although, few films that feature in multiplexes are anywhere near as clichéd as the retort “Stick to the multiplex!”. Play the ball, not the man.) One of my favourite films of the year is The Legend of Kaspar Hauser. Why I responded to that and not Holy Motors is largely down to personal taste. Wouldn’t it be dull if everybody loved and hated the same films?
Kudos to Cam for going against the consensus to air his honest opinion.
I just saw this at the Chicago International Film Fest and the audience response was resounding applause. I really enjoyed it.