Holy Motors (2012)

In Paris, Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) leads an unusual life; he travels the city chauffer driven by Celine (Edith Scob). With each stop (or appointment) he must assume the identity of another person, as the day proceeds the identities he assumes become more and more bizarre.

As a personal statement Holy Motors is either a filmmaking masterpiece, or the biggest piece of crap you’ll have ever seen. I cannot lie, I do not know which camp I fall into, one thing I will say is I would certainly watch it again. If I take this a stage further I might say, if one of my children, or a child I knew was flirting with some sort of drug activity, I might show them this movie, and see how they come out. Holy Motors feels an awful lot like a night on some highly potent illegal substances.

 You soon understand that Holy Motors is not the normal run of the mill movie when the leading character awakes from his slumber, and tries to feel his way out of his room, before his finger changes into a socket wrench, and twists a hexagonal design on the wallpaper, which opens a door to a cruise liner. This opening scene is one of the more normal aspects of the film.

Laughs are high on the agenda, especially when you realize that not one single aspect of the movie is how it appears. You cannot help but be reminded of the anthology movie, for each character that Oscar assumes, creates a completely different story or vignette if you prefer, and a new array of characters. During his encounters (appointments as they are referred to), he must dress as a giant troll, and kidnap a super model played by Eva Mendes, and carry out a killing, or depends how you view it maybe too.  In the process of carrying out his task, he will even be killed, but only for a few minutes. It’s the overall craziness that brings on the laughs; the idiocracy of so much, and this includes the addition of Kylie Minogue towards the end of the movie, though you feel her presence much earlier.

Holy Motor’s is the product of Leos Carax whose movies Boy Meets Girl, and The Night Is Young were highly acclaimed hits. But his labour of love The Lover’s On The Bridge, which illustrated his eccentric side, was met with an incredibly poor reception. For many Carax fan’s Holy Motors is their hope that he is back on track.

Holy Motors is a mind-boggling movie, with oodles of character; it’s funny, emotional, and surprising. It has images that will stay in your head, most notably the accordion interlude, which comes completely out of nowhere, and really takes things up a gear.

Will you like it? Well……..

Holy Motors in in UK cinemas from September 28th.