Is there a scale for weird? There ought to be, like the Mohs scale. Somewhere on that weird scale between Crispin Glover and Eraserhead lies Holy Motors, a French film that even French people find nutty.
Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is a master of disguise. He travels all day as the lone passenger in white stretch limo driven by Céline (Edith Scob). She’s his every(wo)man – chauffer, assistant, caretaker, scheduler, surgeon, dietician, compass, etc. She spends the day taking him to appointments. This sounds relatively normal so far, right? And then Oscar gets ready for his first “appointment” – he produces a wig and flips a makeup table. When the middle-aged man exits the limo, he has assumed the shape of an ancient asexual beggar: haggard, craggy, ragged and several other double g words. He applies the trade of the profession on the street, feebly shoving a tin cup in front of passersby. Is this performance art? Is it a ruse? Appointment assumes responsibility, right? Before each agenda item, Oscar is handed a folder with instructions. Logic suggests he didn’t make the folder himself. But what does it mean? Who has solicited the task of Oscar le Grouch?
If you’re gonna give up on Holy Motors, this is the time, because guessing is the only available audience tool. The string of unrelated appointments to follow is a fascinating mix of complex human emotion hand-in-hand with a fascinating paucity of human information. Oscar will wear many costumes and commit acts sinful, bizarre and illegal before the day
is over.
In the third appointment, Monsieur Oscar emerges as a deranged version of the Notre Dame mascot – multi-hued green hobbit wear, disheveled goatee, ghost eye and a wild aggression. “He” leaps into a cemetery and starts eating random gravestone flowers. Discovering a pathway, he proceeds to disturb patrons on his way to destroying a photo shoot featuring Eva Mendes. Mission accomplished, he escapes with Mendes on his shoulder, not unlike Kong taking Fay Wray – although a closer analogy might be the operatic phantom as he and Mendes wind up in a sewer grotto. No, really, that’s how I’m gonna describe this. But if you think that’s weird, the scene ends with Mendes sitting in a makeshift burqa of Oscar’s design singing a heartfelt lullaby while Oscar is reclined naked, head in her lap, while sporting an angry erect penis. Ah, this is art.
As an American, it’s easy to dismiss such moments as nonsensical art crap. A series of beer commercials years ago asked, “why do foreign films have to be sooooo … foreign?” while pointing mocking finger at a tearful b&w clown wearing subtitles. I’m going to pretend for a moment that my emotional maturity has progressed beyond Monday Night Football. It hasn’t, but I’m going to pretend it all the same, because this moment was as shocking as any in a horror film in 2012. You gotta believe a naked monster with a raging hard-on represents lust, no? Especially with his desire to take Eva Mendes from a crowded scene. But then, what does the monster do? He is placated after covering her up and having her sing. Does music sooth the savage beast? Do burqas sooth the savage beast?
I don’t know what any of it means. My best guess is that Holy Motors is a metaphor for human experience. We all wear many hats during a day. Suppose our minds just act as chauffeurs guiding us from one experience to the next. Suppose our bodies are limos getting us from one “appointment” to the next. The word appointment itself is fairly amorphous; it could be anything from going to work to walking down a flight of stairs. Suppose emotion were an “appointment” and every time we changed emotion that was a new “appointment.” Are we not all actors in an emotional sense, constantly donning new internal costumes to represent our moods? Is not our world a stage? I see Holy Motors as the manifestation of human emotion played out – but I have no idea if that’s anywhere near the truth – and that’s the best part of this film – it’s a series of intriguing linear non-sequiturs interpretable to almost any standard you choose – much like human experience itself.
Much like a freeway accident, you can’t turn away
Like it or not, attention you’ll pay
Between eccentr- and eclect- ic Monsieur Oscar resides
Making sense of this pic will churn your insides
Rated NR, 115 Minutes
D: Leos Carax
W: Leos Carax
Genre: Enigma
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Film critics
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Disney
