Holy Motors

                  The first scene already gave an eerie vibe. It gave me this idea that this movie was going to be hard to understand. I think that throughout the film, it gives the impression that it isn’t meant to be understand. In the first scene, the man unlocks a secret door which opens up to an audience that appears to be watching. I think this sets the intro to how each scene to follow is meant to target an audience. It really is meant to be an art form and show. The next scene appears to be a wealthy businessman who walks out of his mansion and enters a limo. At this point I think ok I guess it revolves around this businessman. Only to find out that his first appointment isn’t actually a meeting but him playing a role. He starts dressing up as an old beggar and executes it so perfectly. But nothing really happens here except for him doing the part. So by this time, I’m really so confused and I prepare myself for the movie to actually keep getting weirder. I found the next appointment really interesting because it seemed very futuristic like how they make animated movies. I was again impressed because his stunts were done so well and he really is so versatile. I think the scene with the woman was meant not to be humanistic, it seemed like they were filming something that was supposed to mimic animals or aliens. The next appointment was the one I was most impressed with. He did it so professionally. Like he even ate a full meal to prepare for his next role. This beastly role was done so well, he was freaky and bizarre in a really good way. When he bit the assistant’s fingers, I was shocked and left hanging because I don’t really know what happened to the girl afterwards. The contrast between the model and the “beast” appears as a modern beauty and the beast. The next scene of the actor and the daughter made me confused as to whether this was his real character only to realize that it was still just another appointment. In the scene where he kill his doppleganger, only to be “killed” as well. At this point I think, how can he survive, this is probably the end of the movie. But I think at this point it shows that death it something that’s so easily reversible in the film, death doesn’t actually mean death in the act. The next scene where he acts as a dying father, was the first time I saw another actress acknowledge that they were acting. The daughter tells her real name and introduces herself once the scene was finished which shows how everyone in the scenes are all part of the act. The next scene where he met up with his former lover was probably the realest part of the film. It was realy because he didn’t set up an appointment with her, it was sort of by chance that they saw each other there. They also seemed like they haven’t seen each other in so long are have both been so submerged in their different characters for so long that they barely recognized each other. They used the spare 20 mins that they had to catch up. It was extremely romantic and intimate even as the song expressed what they truly felt with each other. At one point I even felt like they were unsure if everything they’ve been doing has been worth it. But even if they had true feelings for each other, they were still stuck in this bubble of acting a part. They can’t actually be together because that’s not where their story leads them to be.
She has a fiancé/boyfriend (probably also just part of an act or part of her character). That’s why this time is so precious because it’s the only time they show a glimpse of who they really are apart from their roles. When the woman committed suicide, I was so unsure as to whether it was real or was this just another way of them creating death and bringing her back to a different character. Although I had a feeling that this was somehow real because the way Oscar reacted was different as how he used to. Normally, once he enters the limo, he switches his emotions/character right away. That’s sort of his neutral state but when he saw the woman fall, he was not able to handle it. He screamed and drank as if he was depressed. (maybe it was the tipping point) I somehow felt that through out this movie, the man was just so trapped. He had no chance to be himself, no chance to make his own decisions because someone was always watching him. I think to a certain extent, it was really beautiful how he was able to channel himself into all those characters. It was entertaining as one of the people in the audience. But it also begs the question as to if he was happy, maybe he’s been inside this acting job for too long. He seemed overworked, lacking inspiration and desperate for something more than this life he had. This goes to show how a performance is really just a facade, it’s beautiful in the outside but these individuals have a whole lot more going on inside of them.

This film was an extreme roller coaster ride of intense abstract scenes. The film sheds light to the importance of role-playing in one’s life. This helps people really find themselves and who they are. How we as humans would present ourselves in different moments in our lives. An interesting factor of the film is that Denis Lavant is so masterful in his appointments that take him in different disguises and personas that are completely different have no link whatsoever. A puzzle for me was trying to piece them together and make sense of each persona’s link to the other but it was a futile effort.

I had two scenes in the movie that I really found interesting and admired. One was the motion capture suit scene where an abstract dance was done. This scene although abstract and made no conventional sense, had purpose. It portrayed the wild and happy expressions of youth. Then the scene I was most fond of in the film was the accordion playing scene. This was a nice change of pace as it acted as the intermission for the film’s unending abstract storylines. Even though a break was in order as said, it wasn’t going to be a conventional break and this scene really impressed me.

HOLY COW.. is what was continuously being said in my head throughout each scene of this movie. In most movies, the longer you watch the film the more you get to understand everything, but this is definitely not the case for this film. It seemed that whenever I added another scene to the big picture, the more did it unhinge me. I was just getting more puzzled as I watched the film. Even until the very end, when you would expect to have everything finally piece together, things were just made even more confusing.

The movie started with Monsieur Oscar in what I think is his actual form? At the time he just seemed to be an ordinary wealthy businessman who lived in a great house, and owns a limo, but his day to day assignments proved otherwise. M. Oscar had 8 assignments for the day and through his assignments he was able to showcase to me the abnormalities and the randomness of life. Through his different roles/personas, I sort of tried to make sense out of everything by proving to myself the significance of what he’s doing. I just feel that, although some assignments he did were weird and seemed to have no positive effect on anybody, there are actual people in our world who act similarly and they are sort of important in maintaining the balance of the world, I guess?

Just when things got really weird after the finger-biting homeless, and old beggar woman role M. Oscar surpasses death? Or so I think he does? He gets stabbed in the neck and you’d expect him to die by then, but he turns out fine and goes on towards his next assignment. Later on in the movie, it is revealed that other people involved in M. Oscar’s assignments, are also playing a role or doing an assignment as well. This just made things even more confusing, and I really couldn’t tell between reality within the film, and acts vis-a-vis.

As he continued to succeed in completing his assignments, I started to doubt his humaneness due to how much talent he had. It didn’t seem possible to be that talented to be able to perform all these personas. Without consulting external analysis, I came to the conclusion that M. Oscar is a robot, or isn’t human at least? This probably isn’t the case, but to me it explained a lot of blurry parts in the movie. How he was able to escape death, how he was able to have so much unique talents and skills, and how an agency with so much parallelisms between employees are just some of the parts explained by my theory. Even the title could seem to hint to something of the likes.

Leos Carax’s Holy Motors (2012) has outranked all of the movies we’ve seen in class with regard to being the weirdest. The main character of the film, Oscar has assignments with a driver of his limousine, Celine. Without direction or any given context as to why it was happening, he goes around the city to play different roles. In contrast to Trier and Leth’s The Five Obstructions (2003), each of the tasks given to the main character were definitely not related to one another and even seemed to serve no purpose at certain times.

            After a very confusing beginning scene of the film, I was finally ready to begin to comprehend the rest of the movies. Oscar, the main character, appeared to be a businessman that had many appointments to accomplish. The film begins to become confusing in scenes, such as when he had to dress up as an actual old female beggar, and the time when he appeared to be a naked freak to the unbothered character of Eva Mendes. These definitely confused me when it came to searching for the film’s essence and direction. After a while, you begin to realize that Oscar was actually an actor and the scene of him appearing to be a businessman was just as fake as all those other roles that he’s played. Work doesn’t seem to end for Oscar, as he continues to play a certain role until the following day.

            I felt that the movie was actually teasing the audience that were in search for the “true Oscar” and who he really was. In between appointments, we can try to read his actions, but you’ll definitely not fully understand, who he is throughout the entirety of the film. You couldn’t really tell which parts of the film outside the limousine showed the actual side of Oscar. Some roles tend to fool you into thinking that it was his actual life, such as when he was with a little girl that appeared to be his daughter, or when he met with an old friend at the rooftop of a building.

            The movie seemed like its purpose was to truly confuse and disturb its audience. Creating an illusion of a lack of purpose in the film. As a member of the audience, you look for the film’s purpose and search to answer the question as to why the character was doing what he was doing. I was awaiting the end of the film, hoping that it would finally reveal the reasons behind all of these. The movie ends with talking limos of the other actors in the city. This annoyed me even more as I had to think of reasons with regard to that scene too.

           A week after watching the film, I begin to wonder if the purposelessness of certain scenes could be related to our own lives. Sometimes we act like robots, doing what we do for something we feel serves no purpose at all. Oscar is confronted by his superior asking him why he continued to do what he was doing. Oscar expresses that he continues to do what he does because he remembers why he started. If there’s any lesson that I personally learned in the movie it would be to remember that regardless if you feel like what you’re doing serves no purpose, recall why you were driven to do it in the first place.

           Despite the confusion and headaches the film offered, the film viewing experience was actually still quite enjoyable, I continue to look forward to the rest of the films that the course has in store for us.

The movie had my attention from the very first moment when the man asleep in bed wakes up to approach a wall or the room that resembles a forest. He seemed to have played the “Find Waldo” version of opening the door often, as he knew just where to look to unlock the door using a key growing from his finger. This is when I knew that I was in for a ride.

He gets into the waiting limo, driven by a taciturn woman, and we see that the back of the limousine is significantly larger than it seems on the outside, similarly resembling the tents in Harry Potter. The back of the limousine is filled with costumes and props with even a dressing mirror installed. The first transformation, the first of many to come in the day, takes place as he dresses up as an old lady begging for money in the streets. When he gets out the first time, he has transformed himself into a wretched beggar woman. His performance was nothing short of superb, fooling everyone that walks past him in the street, or perhaps it was because no one ever really cares for the poor. His succeeding performances or embodiment get even more bizarre, with him embodying the spirit of his characters as if it were himself. His “appointments” take him into personas so diverse, it would be futile to try to link them, or find a thread of narrative or symbolism. If there is a message here, Walt Whitman once put it into words: “I am large. I contain multitudes.”

One of the more memorable moments in the film was shortly after when Oscar bit the finger off of the famous fashion designer and kidnapped the model to an underground tunnel. It was there that Oscar ripped her clothes to change her to look like a Muslim woman. The model doesn’t flinch much in the process, as she stays in character of her job as a model – staying posed and not reflecting any emotions. Her job as a model preceded her emotions as a person, a statement that this movie seem to make of how our society has forced us to embrace our jobs as a large part of our self identity. Sometimes it constitutes our entire self.

Splashing around in a pool of wit, theatrical splendour and unbounded imagination, Holy Motors is a true original, serving as an avenue for us to open our minds towards what could be. There is something so thrilling about its lawlessness leaving the audience more engrossed, wondering “what’s gonna happen next?”

The spontaneous turn of events kind of remind us that there is so much more to discover, so much more to see. It reminds me of simulation games where you could choose a character you’d want to play with a number of lives, the possibilities are endless. 

There is something so enigmatic about the way Denis Lavant’s character, Monsieur Oscar moves, how he takes on new roles or embodiments and portrays them quite perfectly, it is almost believable. His embodiments were so intriguing it gets you thinking, is this a mere simulation? Could there be a schizophrenic phenomena? Denis Lavant probably took on one of the most strenuous and demanding roles of all time, having to portray ten different personas. 

We learn to appreciate the physical tremor actors may go through as they portray their own roles with great skill and talent stretching themselves out just for the love of the craft. This is exemplified when a mysterious man with a red mark on his face asks Monsieur Oscar if he was getting tired in his job. 

As part of the audience, you learn how to choose not to make sense of it anymore and just simply enjoy watching the events that unfold. The filmmaker gives you the power to define it and give your own interpretations. It could bring in a new kind of cinema, one that is more explorative of the plot, stepping out of the cinematic conventions, letting go of its habitual and ritualistic ways. 

I think the filmmaker was exceptionally visionary and valiant. The entire movie felt like a fantasy dream, that could take you to places and allow you take on whatever role you would want. Despite the unconventional plot, it was still an oddly spellbinding film that open-minded individuals would love indefinitely. Its plot is unparalleled, without a doubt. Its peculiarity made the film an avant-garde masterpiece. 

Holy Motors is a film, to put it simply, not easily digestible.

However it can be once you see it as it is – as if from a child’s perspective seeing it for the first time. The film if taken in in with our scrutinization over every singular aspect renders it almost utterly incomprehensible. However, it is also in this taking apart that we finally realise what the film is about – not a mere bundle of random clips of ostentatious scenarios put together, but a film about performance, acting, and cinema itself.

Towards the end of the film, we see the main character, Oscar, speaking to his presumed boss (“What keeps you going?” “The beauty of the act”.) One of the things that make a film a film, and that which drives the plot forward, are the characters who bring the story to life and are essentially the moving force behind the continued progression of the plot. In Holy Motors, we see a multiplicity of fragmented plots and the film’s clever transitions between them, as well as its integration of multiple genres and types of movies – drama, a musical, a CGI-edited film.While all of the plots seem to have rather mainstream narratives – even the scene with Eva Mendes, which may be said to be indicative (if we look closely) of a more explicit rendering of the otherwise not uncommon Beauty and the Beast movie theme. Performance is an extremely rich area of cinematic expression (Spiedel, 2016). More often than not, actors portray their character intentions on screen actors’ through carious aspects and mannerism they intergrate within their performances. According to Speidel, performances and our decoding of them are shaped by our everyday shared understanding of human body language, which alerts us to the possibility that (ex.) the act of chewing a lip, for example, may signify anxiety.The main actor Denis Lavant may then be said to have succeeded immensely in his portrayal not just of one, but nine drastically different roles, some of which are not even human. The entire film was animated by acting – both of the entire cast and Lavant. The only thread of continuity was the Holy Motor – otherwise, the film is a fragmented set of various scenes, ranging from the normal (the father-daughter conversation, the bedside table scene)  to the obscure (the CGI simulated sex scene) and the absurd (Chimpanzee scene). The entire film, in that sense and from the perspective of the viewer, may simply be said to be a testament to the actor’s versatility and raw talent.

However, despite this, without a consistent narrative, a setting/situation to hold onto, without actions having consequences, how do we arrive at the character’s purpose? We know he’s an actor, and we come to expect these performances, and yet the expectation of seeing the “real life” underneath is sometimes teased but never really met. Hence we proceeded to an analysis of his performance itself, without still knowing the meaning of the film nor the intent behind these performances. In the realisation of the reality that there are an infinity of different interpretations of the film. And since it’s quite impossible to come to one, we realise:

The main question Leo Carax’s film begs its viewers, more important than what it means, or even more important than how we comprehend it, Is it possible to enjoy a film that lacks such a crucial filmic element – narrativity? Is it possible to enjoy a film that doesn’t allow you to orient yourself in it?is is it possible to enjoy a film you cannot understand? The answer is YES. Because of the unspoken element of film – experience, Specifically, the kind of film experience Holy Motors brings us.

While the film happens in a homogenous world (single diegesis, from day in to day out) it takes you to another world. Every film creates its own cosmos, its own universe, and Holy Motors creates many. The Experience of Watching the Film which constantly interrupts itself and doesn’t create a seamless experience renders it spontaneous and disorienting. The line between fact or fiction is so blurred until we don’t know what the hell is happening. And as soon as we think we know what’s happening, cars start talking.

While it may be the complexity and pure chaos of a confusing plot that initially reels our attention and makes us keep watching, continued by the captivating performances of the actors, the experience of the film draws us in and make us stay.

It’s a movie about the experience.

And if we are not meant to experience these movies, we can’t make works of art. And you can choose to leave the film artless, or you can appreciate the individual broken pieces – every singular element, every singular performance.

It’s not a film of glorious visuals, of heartwrenching morality, it’s a film of performance, it’s a film not just to be watched but to be experienced, that thus constitutes “The Beauty of the Act” – no matter how fleeting it may be.

Holy Motors has won and been nominated for dozens of prestigious awards. We love what we can’t understand. Let’s not ruin it by trying to.