Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)

[FerdinandGriffon]

His segment in Tokyo! is much better than any of those in Holy Motors (especially the Merde reprise, which is rote and lifeless in comparison to the original), so you're probably making the right choice.

[Adam]

What do you make of those early pre-cinema documentary bits of

Spoiler

naked athletes performing physical tasks for Muybridge.

For me it's about something like this: Cinema is first and foremost about watching people do things. That, in spite of a century or more of innovation, all films remain in their essence documentaries of people performing physical actions. And that, in a way, this record of visible actions is still the most precise and definitive thing we can say about the experience of any given film. Not what a film means, or why it's all happening thus, but simply what we've seen the actors do.

Just a quick fact check - Carax was referencing Marey, not Muybridge, although there are similarities. The end credits specifically cited Marey.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne-Jules_Marey" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One might see him as the French Muybridge, or Muybridge as the American Marey, but they used different devices, and worked independently. But they were essential in late "pre-cinema" leading to cinema as we know it being created

For me, two relevant points.
The film might be universal, but it is also very French, or or even more precisely, a love letter to Paris. Paris is the city most associated with cinema and the love of it. I'm not sure of the profundity of this point, but it seems relevant.

Also, I think he's exploring more of the essential characteristics of cinema than just acting: capturing of movement by a series of still frames (explicitly in Marey's film; documenting places; drawing from and evoking dream states; the need for places of darkness; and so forth.
Perhaps appropriate films to look at in parallel are "Film Ist" by Gustav Deutsch, which uses found footage, where Carax chose to make an acted fiction.

[Kellen]

Got a chance to watch this last night I enjoyed it, Is the film supposed to loosely represent Carax's journey in filmmaking? Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Denis Lavant's character seeming bored/tired of the same acting over and over. Looking at Leos' filmography I noticed that his last full feature before this was 1999 and I remember reading some of his press for this film where he talked about be frustrated with filmmaking and what not. I dunno maybe I'm looking into a bit much. Just curious for someone else's thoughts.

[zedz]

There's a lot of self-reflexivity to the film, but as far as I know, the gap(s) in Carax's filmography are largely down to the usual funding difficulties (see also: just about every other underemployed great contemporary filmmaker), not any ennui or exhaustion on his part. I'm sure he's frustrated with that inevitable aspect of the filmmaking process, though.

[MichaelB]

Les Amants du Pont-Neuf was a financial disaster, and I'm not sure Pola X set the box office alight either.

You can't ignore that side of things when it comes to projects with much bigger budgets than the arthouse norm. Les Amants cost the equivalent of $28 million in early 1990s dollars - in other words, a hefty budget even by American standards of the time, and a terrifyingly huge one in French terms. It's unfair to call it (as many did) the French equivalent of Heaven's Gate, because it got far better reviews and did modestly well in domestic cinemas - but nowhere near enough to compensate for poor international returns.

[Matt]

POLA X was also a long time in pre-production. The "X" actually signifies that it was the tenth draft of the script he ended up filming.

[dad1153]

Just saw this for the first time, my first Carax movie. Love that the unknown/unseen boss that pays the bills of this movie for our amusement is us. We, the audience is the known/seen boss, set-up by that nice looking-at-the-audience reverse-perspective shot (similar to one in Haneke's "Amour"). I'm pretty sure Céline is meant to represent the middlemen (agents, managers, studio heads, etc.) involved in getting the movie-making process. And the limo, well, the movie kind-of answers that. :)

And I'm sorry but, on first impression, this so feels like a tribute to the craft of not merely acting but the creation of 'magic movie moment' (an acknowledged-to-be-fake-but-sincerely-performed moment that a collective audience or individual embraces). Like "adaptation" was to the art of screenwriting, "Holy Motors" tests its audience, over and over again. It even throws the equivalent of "Duck Amuck" Rorschach tests that, rather than confuse, enhance the dream-like state that the movie achieves early and never lets go off without ever being confusing or repellent (like Joe Wright's theater-artifice take on "Anna Karenina" came across).

"Holy Motors" will make a tremendous double-bill with "Cloud Atlas," except none of the talented actors in that ambitious misfire can hold a candle to the chameleon-like tour-de-force performance by Denis Lavant. God bless the Wachowski's and Tom Tykwer, but they were more concerned with making a blockbuster movie along with the 'hook' of multi-character-in-different-make-up casting. "Holy Motors" raises its own ante by daring the viewer to buy/reject the sincerity and 'magic' that each of its vignettes either achieves or not (it'll be up to each individual viewer to make that call). Personally I found Lavant makes for

Spoiler

a better crazy man than a dying old man,

but even the latter benefits from Carax knowing when exactly to de-emphasize or emphasize the artifice of its premise.

I've often referred to a perfect casting choice (for example, Christopher Reeve in "Superman") as the best special effect that no computer or special effect technician will ever be able to replicate (something Robert Zemeckis has spent the past decade proving conclusively). "Holy Motors" embraces the joy, sadness and artifice that 'magic movie moments' bring to both performer and audience alike, and we're all the better because of it.

Now excuse me while I reshuffle my Top 10 list for 2012... again!

[dad1153]

can't we keep [the top tens] pinned for a couple of months as people are able to see late releases?

Especially those that aren't on NYC and L.A. "Holy Motors," for example, played for a couple of weeks in November in one theater in Chicago and won't likely be seen there until the video release hits shelves.

[Brian C]

^^^ Especially those that aren't on NYC and L.A. "Holy Motors," for example, played for a couple of weeks in November in one theater in Chicago and won't likely be seen there until the video release hits shelves.

It also played a week at the Siskel in addition to its earlier run at the Music Box. And just a heads up to Chicago Carax fans, it's also playing a weekend at Doc Films on January 26-27.

[Jeff]

^^^ Especially those that aren't on NYC and L.A. "Holy Motors," for example, played for a couple of weeks in November in one theater in Chicago and won't likely be seen there until the video release hits shelves.

It also played a week at the Siskel in addition to its earlier run at the Music Box. And just a heads up to Chicago Carax fans, it's also playing a weekend at Doc Films on January 26-27.

I've been surprised at how popular it has been. It's still going strong in its sixth week in Denver. It debuted at a Landmark theater for a one-week run, but it moved to one of the three screens at the Denver FilmCenter after that, and has been going strong ever since. It must be doing decent business.

[Mathew2468]

Finally some success for the man.

[knives]

Couldn't figure out where else to put this, but Indomina which released this and a few other films in the states has just shut its doors. Don't know what this means for the DVD.

[markant]

Sorry, but this is possibly the worst film i've ever seen, I had to turn it off half way through.

[manicsounds]

The UK Artificial Eye disc (Region B/2) is out now, so that's the current option.

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

Well the US Blu is still up for a February 26th release on Amazon

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Indomina's remaining slate will still be distributed on video by Vivendi, just like their previous releases.

They had some good titles, but I can't say I'm surprised they went under. A distributor that makes less money from Flying Swords of Dragon Gate than China Lion made on films like Love in the Buff and A Simple Life clearly has issues.

[colinr0380]

Sorry for the following disordered comments on the film! Having watched the AE Blu of the film over the weekend, I'm a little ambivalent about Holy Motors. I really like that the main theme of the film is about performance but there is a kind of bleakness to that portrait of an actor who is a kind of blank canvas at the mercy of his roles. It makes the film very episodic and portmanteau-like in its construction, but I think that was the point, emphasising the way that the person is lost behind playing ever changing characters. It also works as a way for Carax to throw in characters without having to dedicate a full length film to them, which they might not be able to fully carry. The film feels like a sketch book of messy, beautiful, half-thought, half-remembered ideas, which is both wonderful (for inventiveness) and problematic (if you want complex plotting and developing characters).

I do think that the film gets closer than any other to portraying (what I imagine could be) the tragedy of the actor: the way that roles come and go and it might be difficult for an actor to build up traction over a career when every character necessarily has to begin from a zero sum state over and over again. An actor is constantly bringing their characters to climaxes, whether beautifully written or painfully contrived ones. Yet the film ends and they are ejected from the piece of work as much as the audience is. They might have lived many lives but at what cost to their own? The emphasis placed on knowing your character inside and out while your own life goes unlived, or can only be measured through experiences that can be perhaps more properly be attributed to the fictional character that you are playing. And this is before we get into the idea of an actor's persona merging with a character that they are most famous for, or of an actor loving/hating the idea of returning to one of their most famous creations (the M. Merde section), always with the ambiguous feeling that the character is more beloved than the actor themselves and the ever present possibility that any additional new material will end up wrecking the character.

There is the sense that the outside life is just as much of an empty performance as any of the appointments that the actor goes to during his day. Whether he leaves his luxury house and loving family or returns to a tiny apartment shared with a few monkeys, it is all an image of 'home' more than home itself. This I think suggests that actors have long been pioneers of 'virtual spaces' which are now seeping into the real world. For now the actor still has to be ferried to the green screen stage to do their performance, but what happens when the green screen stage comes to them and they don't need to be moved around anywhere?

In a sense the green screen sequence is the most abstract and extreme one of all, yet it is not so far removed from the other appointments, just that the actor has been boiled down enormously until just their essence of physical movement remains. And those bare dots of movement are all that is required of them. But that also makes a beautifully apt comparison of extremely modern technology to the earliest films where the filmmakers and audiences were much more concerned with just witnessing movement than what exactly the actors were doing on screen. It is enough that they move realistically rather than give any more of a performance.

The film obviously soars during the Kylie sequence, where discussions of lost love and past remembrances take place, suggesting something deeper to the world beyond just people dressing in costumes and adopting various postures. Yet is this just an example of a 'film within a film' mode of acting? Actors playing at being actors rather than a meeting between two star-cross'd lovers (the accidental nature of the meeting suggests that it might not just be another 'appointment', but is that just a way of springing into the next fictional sequence?)

During the Kylie section I was reminded of a half-remembered science-fiction story that I once read about an infertile society where the few fertile couples were ordered to go on 'enforced' sex dates, with them being given various enticing uniforms to wear (sailor suits, nurses outfits, pilots uniforms, etc) to help them get into character (or lose themselves to the acting) for the encounter. The story was all about the bizarre split between meaningless biological encounters and the impossibility of love occurring between two people who actually do fall for each other during one meeting.

There is a similar tragedy to the Kylie encounter, where I got a sense that there was one moment of pure connection there, either between the real human beings or their acted characters (which that nice moment of goodbye between Lavant and Eva Mendes at the end of their segment, which is included in the deleted scenes, resonates nicely with) was so powerful that it broke through the artifice. Yet that moment passed and they both have taken on so many new characters in the interim that there is no real possibility of going back.

This perhaps also gets back to that idea of actors being at the whims of whoever is creating the material for them to act. If the actors are not allowed to be together by the writer or director then their characters can never be together. Only the luckiest actor (or character) gets a Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight series in which their relationship evolves. Instead a contrived suicide can be the best they can expect, which brings the relationship to a climax. An operatically contrived full stop rather than a hanging in limbo on the promise of some day returning to your character.

[Zot!]

Finally got around to seeing this. Sort of ho-hum for me sadly. However, there was nice absurd moments. I'm pretty sure it was Hulot's Mon Oncle Carax was quoting at the beginning, when the man is leaving his modern house to go to work. Once the novelty of watching what would happen next wore off, I lost interest. I was also perplexed by the scene where he disciplines his "daughter". Not sure what that was, if not just stream-of-conciousness randomness. A little too close to Mulholland Drive as well, what with all the showbiz self-reflexiveness, dream logic, and shifting identities. And I think that was a much better film.

Edit: I read the daughter is Carax's own. I guess it's his spoof on some kind of coming of age tale. My least favorite Carax film surely. That includes his segment in Tokyo!.

[karmajuice]

The daughter is not Carax's. And I don't think any ounce of this film is a spoof.

[Black Hat]

His daughter is the little girl in the beginning looking out the window as he first leaves for work.

[repeat]

I don't know, I think the sad/tragic aspects of this film tend to be a bit undervalued/misunderstood, maybe because of the more flamboyant absurd pyrotechnics on display. Carax has stated pretty clearly that it's not about actors or movies, but about the way we all lead different roles, and also about how modern technology - the Internet - facilitates this dissolution of the self. I recently saw this again on the big screen and I swear I was literally holding back tears through most of the second half. Maybe that's just me being weird but I don't know, I see it as a very sad film overall. I can sort of understand how you could maybe very superficially look at it as a series of random entertaining spectacular absurdities, but not really.

(I think the references to other films and the "movie about movies" aspects have been massively blown out of proportion - if you've seen his other films you know it's just a feature of his style - but here it seems to have affected the reading of the entire movie heavily... admittedly that mask at the end was asking for it though!)

[Zot!]

The daughter is not Carax's. And I don't think any ounce of this film is a spoof.

I'm pretty sure the daughter being picked up at the party is Carax's. The Mr. Merde segment is a confirmed spoof of Godzilla movies, and there are several other segments that seem to subvert genre conventions in a humorous way, like the assassin. I thought the comedic elements were the best part.

If the film is not about cinema, then I give up. I see very little hint that this is about anything but, and if Carax intended otherwise, he's fooling himself. In not a single one of his other films do remember a self-reflexive deconstructed Godardian style of direct reference to cinema. It is entirely unique to Holy motors.

[repeat]

If the film is not about cinema, then I give up. I see very little hint that this is about anything but, and if Carax intended otherwise, he's fooling himself. In not a single one of his other films do remember a self-reflexive deconstructed Godardian style of direct reference to cinema. It is entirely unique to Holy motors.

I could point to at least half a dozen different interviews from memory where Carax categorically debunks that interpretation, but I'm not going to clutter this thread with links as they can easily be Googled. I don't know what "deconstruction" has to do with this (isn't it out of fashion already anyway?), but if you're seriously suggesting there are no references to other films in Carax's other works, I suggest you have another look at them

[zedz]

In not a single one of his other films do remember a self-reflexive deconstructed Godardian style of direct reference to cinema. It is entirely unique to Holy motors.

Are you kidding? His first three features at least are filled with (gleeful, poetic, unexpected) allusions to other films, and the Godzilla gag is much more a part of Carax's Tokyo segment than Merde redux in this film. The references (Vigo, Gremillon, Kalatazov, Godard) tend to be less contemporary than some of the ones in Holy Motors, but they're a fundamental aspect of his style.

And it seems pretty clear to me that in Holy Motors, Carax is using the mechanics of cinema to explore and discuss much more fundamental aspects of modern human psychology, as has been argued earlier in this thread and (apparently) confirmed by the director himself in interviews. You just need to look past the metaphor.

[Zot!]

There are plenty of allusions to other films in his previous movies, but Holy Motors is vastly different in terms of its explicit depiction of and commentary on the craft, cliches, tropes and iconography of cinema. So I'm supposed to disregard all that and accept that it is in fact about the internet and being stuck in a rut?