Oscar (Denis Lavant) is a
busy man, leaving his home at first light to fulfil the nine appointments he
has today. As Oscar is chauffeured into Paris by his assistant Céline (Édith Scob), he prepares himself for
his first appointment and steps out of his limousine as an old beggar lady.
Oscar is revealed to be an actor, the limousine acting as a dressing room with
boxes full of props. During the course of the day, Oscar goes through his
appointments, transforming into bizarre characters, some for the amusement of
an unseen audience, others perhaps only for Oscar’s benefit.
Leos Carax’s Holy Motors has
some of the most stunning and captivating imagery around. In one scene Oscar is
in a motion capture session, displaying great athleticism as he pretends to hold
off invisible enemies with martial arts and gymnastics. The audience only gets
a sense of what is happening, as it is pitch black with only the white motion
capture points on Oscar’s suit giving any indication of what is going on. Later
into the scene, a motion capture actress enters the room, dressed in a shiny
red motion capture suit. She begins to contort her body as Oscar caresses her,
acting out a love scene which the audience only sees as a mass of dots. Then
the camera pans over a screen which shows us the CGI scene the actors are
acting out, a grotesque pair of serpent-like creatures gyrating against each
other. Holy Motors follows Oscar as
he becomes a violent impish man crawling through the sewers of Paris, the
leader of an accordion band in a church, a disgruntled father and a dying old
man to name a few of the characters he plays.
The line between artifice and reality is constantly blurred throughout Holy Motors. Is Oscar’s name really
Oscar? As he takes on so many different personas, the audience becomes less
sure about who Oscar is and maybe Oscar isn’t so sure himself anymore, the
constant peril of an actor. As the film progresses, certain moments lose their
certainty as we begin to question whether the scenes presented to us are
supposed to be real or fantasy. Oscar never appears to stop acting, even when
he is at home with his ‘family’, a cruel reveal but in keeping with the spirit
of Holy Motors. It is clear that
Oscar is growing weary of his job to a degree, performing for an invisible
camera and an invisible audience. There appears to be an emphasis on the
industrialist surroundings, which is at odds with Oscar’s occupation and
represents a loss of certain values, maybe something artistic in nature. Only ‘the
beauty of the act’ makes Oscar keep moving forward. Holy Motors, whilst relatively straightforward in plot, is hard to
decipher at times, in terms of its message and its intention.
Holy Motors is
visually spectacular, although it will not hold the audience’s hand which some
viewers may dislike.
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