"Holy Motors" - Film Review

Sacrebleu! 

I have no fucking clue what happens in Holy Motors. I sat there increasingly baffled and, more importantly, delighted by my baffledness. And you know what; I don’t want to know what happened or what it all means. It’s not really one of those movies you comprehend but that you contemplate. And the more you contemplate, the greater the pleasures of its weird mysteries and ambiguousness become.  

The film is about a man Mr. Oscar (Denis Levant) pretending to be (or who actually might be) several other people. He goes around in a limousine, and every so often gets out dressed up as a new person. He has costumes, make up, and disguises in the back of the car. And along the way he becomes more people. Initially it appears as though it might be some strange profession. He keeps calling the jobs as “appointments” that he needs to be at, at precisely the right time. As the film moves along it begins to get weirdly metaphysical, and it feels as though there might be more to these assignments and odd jobs than appears on the surface. It seems to be simultaneously a commentary on the nature of life, the nature of acting, and the nature of films. 

I won’t go into too much detail on the specifics of these people he poses as. It’s far more interesting to go in without much knowledge of what’s to come. It’s just that sort of movie. The different sequences play out like little vignettes. The film lets these various sequences meander around, discovering their own rhythms. The intriguing thing is how everyone in these different sequences buys into the reality of them. In some of them the man has a strong connection with the people he interacts with. At times it’s easy to forget that this is a man in costume and buy into him being the person he claims to be. These sequences are often oddly mesmerizing, occasionally exhilarating, sometimes hilarious (if only due to shock value), and certainly never ever dull.

The film does give glimpses of what’s behind the curtain of the disconcerting logic to its mysteries, and we’re provided just enough to get the gist of it, but the mystery is left unresolved in all the right ways. The film devolves further and further into strangeness and mystery, providing us dozens more questions for every answer it gives us. The strangeness continually ramps up, the weirdness multiplies, and then the film ends.     

This lack of answers might sound frustrating, but it’s all so thoroughly engaging, entertaining, and beautifully shot throughout that it’s a pleasure to simply go along for its odd, twisty ride. 

Grade: A