Holy Motors

Well - where to begin with this one?

To say it's French would be a beginning! This film defies rational explanation. The only conclusion I can reach is that the way this film is presented is in a large part also what it is about. It seemingly has no discernible plot or point. If you watch films to enjoy a beginning, a middle and an end this will not satisfy you. If you like narrative arcs this will get your brain turning summersaults to try and work one out.

Monsieur Oscar (perhaps a clue in the name?) spends his days being chauffeured around Paris by Celine in a white stretched limo. The limo is equipped with a wide variety of props, costumes, prosthetics and make up. As the day's journey continues a series of dossiers magically appear to describe the next character and act Monsieur Oscar 'perform'.

There are no visible cameras or audience but a visual clue comes from the opening scenes where someone awakes (or do they) from sleep and encounters a motionless cinema audience watching a film. The only movement comes from a large dog and a child wandering the aisles.

Monsieur Oscar plays nine different characters, all of them quite different. Who commissions these 'performances' is unclear. The fact is that this film is about the ordinary-ness of life and the things we do as part of out daily existence. It is about the masks we wear and the personas we adopt as evidenced by what Celine does at the end of the film (I won't spoil it for you). And what of the title? Is this a film that explores metaphysical themes?

So if you want to a see a banker, a wealthy man dying, a flower-munching, trash-hoarding Monsieur Merde, a rabid-looking sewer creature and a old beggar woman and Oscar killing himself among others, then this is for you.

This film is very different. The images are very graphic and take the viewer on an excursion across a variety of unfamiliar landscapes all within the familiar cityscape of Paris. I've been wanting to see this for a long time. I'm glad I have. I'm not in a hurry to see it again! For me it tries too hard to say something that doesn't really need saying. You'll either love it or hate it. I'll give it 4/10.