Holy Motors (**** out of ****)

Director Leos Carax both infuriates and excites me. What is important is that he always interests me. A french New Wave director in the modern era of cinema, the man has made a  working claim to keep cinema alive. Holy Motors had it's world premiere early this year at the Cannes Film Festival. After it ended the audience applauded (which is common), but instead of a token of respect, the audience cheered like it was the second coming. It was as if they had seen either or even both the rebirth of cinema and a last ditch effort to save it. Holy Motors is bizarre, funny, moving, confusing, interesting and magical.

One thing the audience will learn about the film is that the message is muddled. The film's themes may come across in many different ways. However there is a grand plot. Denis Lavant in a chameleon like way plays 11 characters. The central one would appear to be a business man named Oscar. He is picked up in the morning by a stretch limousine driven by his assistant Celine (Edith Scob). He has nine appointments to keep throughout the day. However these appointments are not of a normal variety. Going to each location Oscar dresses up and acts a role. He acts as a gypsy woman, a motion capture worker, a goblin of sorts (seen in Carax's Tokyo! segment), a working father, a musician (in perhaps the most joyous scene I've seen all year) an assassin, a dying uncle etc. Each character is unique and might not even be tied thematically to the next story at all. What's important is that all of in fact does happen on screen. It may be true or it may be just a film that a man (played by director Leos Carax) dreamily stumbled upon one night.

Many will come to their own conclusions on what the film is about and so I will simply offer mine. Oscar is a movie a character. He plays a many different movie characters when there are simply no cameras to be found. He is not so much an actor as an essence of film. This may be completely wrong but it doesn't matter for it is what I felt. Holy Motors challenges and invigorates the audience to behold a story that shifts and changes at it goes along. Changing from drama, to comedy to musical (with Kylie Minogue supplying a song) Any meaning for the film can be perhaps correct. No, I've not seen a movie like this before (maybe I never will again) and yet it felt like I was waiting for it for years. A compilation of the weird and strange that makes the art form impossible to turn away from. Hypnotic and alluring the film may grow on some nerves, but probably always curious of what will occur next. Holy Motors is a love letter to cinema. It is perhaps the best film of the year.

**** out of ****