Holy Motors (2012)

France / Germany, 115 minutes
Director / writer: Leos Carax
Photography: Yves Cape, Caroline Champetier
Music: Kylie Minogue, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sparks
Editor: Nelly Quettier
Cast: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Michel Piccoli, Kylie Minogue, Eva Mendes, Elise Lhomeau

In February, the latest annual update came for the list of best 21st-century movies over at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, the sweeping aggregation of worldwide critical opinion. According to TSPDT site proprietor Bill Georgaris (whose generous work is much appreciated!), the update was affected this year (not surprisingly) by best-of-decade lists that started arriving around December, and it will be affected next year by the same factor. He didn't get to them all by the time he was wrapping up this year's update, plus no doubt more are still coming in. The list is likely to be affected dramatically again after 2022, when Sight & Sound publishes the results of its own survey, conducted every 10 years, arguably an ongoing pillar of film criticism dating back to the 1950s. Holy Motors is not the only 2010s movie that went high with this year's update—other winners include Mad Max: Fury Road, Boyhood, The Social Network, Under the Skin, Amour, Moonlight, The Act of Killing, Toni Erdmann, and The Master. But Holy Motors did the best of them all, a steady climber already that suddenly shot from #59 last year all the way to #13.

I'm doing a bit of throat-clearing here (hoping you don't notice) because the fact is that Holy Motors is a movie that mostly just puts me off. I've classed it with a few other pictures that came out around then that I think of as "arty bullshit" (even though I'm susceptible to arty bullshit myself, e.g., David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, two favorites). The only one I've been able to remember is Cloud Atlas—but I'm sure there's at least one more from 2011 or 2012, long, aimless, beauteous, fodder for the 6-10 positions in year-end lists. It took me a few years to get to Holy Motors and my thought then was that it was better than I expected—better than Cloud Atlas. Seeing it again recently, I was impressed with its lucidity and energy. Unfortunately, I have to say I think it is still mainly arty bullshit.



Which means, among other things, that I won't be revisiting Cloud Atlas any time soon. The Tree of Life may be the single best example of what I'm talking about in the 2010s, though the narrative in that case is more weak than incoherent (except when Sean Penn is onscreen, when it is dreadfully incoherent). With these celebrated arty bullshit movies I consider overrated, I've learned to pay closer attention to the visual qualities. They often win the praise even as they overwhelm the narrative qualities I instinctively look for. A lot of times that means noting the cinematographer. In the case of Holy Motors I think we might want to look more at the production design, and specifically the makeup work, which is pretty impressive. If you take Holy Motors as a highlight reel for the range of Denis Lavant's performance art capabilities, there's a lot going on here indeed.

Lavant plays Mr. Oscar, which might make it a movie about the movie industry. What this movie is about is up for grabs around here. Mr. Oscar is a man of many faces and abilities. His workday appears to consist of riding around Paris from appointment to appointment in a white stretch limo driven by the immaculately turned out Celine (Edith Scob, who brings some Jane Lynch / Helen Mirren sizzle to the inscrutable role). Mr. Oscar initially has the manner of a well-heeled C-suite exec, comfortable commanding power from the back of a limo with a laptop, smartphone, and like appurtenances. But his appointments consist of donning various bizarre garb and doing bizarre things: begging in the street as a crippled man, modeling martial arts action for a CGI shoot on a soundstage in a studio, going mad as a nutty Charles Manson leprechaun figure in a sewers 'n' street scene, chewing the heads off flowers, the fingers off photographer's assistants, and (I'm going to go there) all the scenery too while he's at it.

For better or worse, Lavant carries Holy Motors, disappearing entirely into each mini-role. It's a kind of series of cinematic Cirque du Soleil or Blue Man performance pieces and he's a kind of Harry Nash from the Kurt Vonnegut story "Who Am I This Time?" A consummate actor who is nothing else. The sad Jerry Lewis clown who makes everyone else laugh. Lavant puts on a certain clinic, especially when you factor in the theatrical flourishes of the makeup. But it's also a stunt, and gimmicky, the equivalent of resorting to insanity in narrative, which can explain everything and anything but ultimately nothing. All Mr. Oscar's characters are theatrical performance pieces, and impressive enough on that level, but they really don't have much to do with people and the way they behave as we normally understand them. Except possibly in the movie industry.

There's an even more lame concept revealed at the end, which kinda sorta ties it all up with the otherwise perfectly unexplained title, but I'll leave that out there for you to discover. I'm genuinely interested in all these movies the critics go bananas for, and I appreciate the opportunities TSPDT gives me to check them out. It's probably fair to call Holy Motors a wild ride in its narrow, arch way and it's probably worth seeing for things like Lavant's bravura turn and the oddness of Kylie Minogue (and her music). It wouldn't make my own top 20 of the 21st century, but it's better than Cloud Atlas ... and that other one, whose title I can't even think of. No, not The Master. You know the one. Help me here.