Sunday, December 23, 2012

Holy Motors

December 23, 2012





This film was topping a lot of year-end critics lists. I was wondering how this could be with such a puzzling, even ugly, title. This of course piqued my interest to watch the film. Now, I honestly wish I didn't.

I cannot even describe any coherent "plot". I do not even think there is one. We see a guy Oscar (fearlessly played by lead actor Denis Lavant) who was taken around in a white stretch limousine by his lady- chauffeur Celine. He transforms himself with make-up, prosthetics and costumes into various strange characters as if trying to accomplish a Treasure Hunt game list of tasks to do.

Some of his characters seemed straightforward enough, like an old lady beggar ignored on the street or a sad father to a pre-teen daughter. Others are way out of the box, like playing a CG snake with a motion- capture outfit or a victim of a shoot-out. But to put it in a sentence, EVERYTHING in this film meant absolutely NOTHING to me.

The weirdest of which was the long and bizarre episode which notably featured Ms. Eva Mendez. This started with Oscar dressed like a demented madman eating flowers from a cemetery, who crashed a photo shoot and abducted the model (Mendez) then took her to a cave, dressed her in a burqa and then laid down on her lap naked and fully erect! 

Now, did that make any sense at all to you? Enough said about the rest of this pretentious nonsense.  I am not obviously not seeing what more learned critics are seeing about this film.  I am willing to learn more about what makes an abstract film as this one to be considered great among serious cineastes of the world.


No comments:

Post a Comment