Holy motors

With the annual “art vs. entertainment” argument in full swing thanks to the Oscars, there’s probably no better time to explore the cultural schism between critics and the average moviegoer - not the least of which is the use of words like cultural schism and referring to the guy sitting next to you as average.

It’s not that critics are a more highly evolved species of man (although I’m sure several believe that to be so) which demands they champion the obscure over the inclusive, the low-budget indie over the blockbuster. It’s just a natural evolution of watching so many variations on the same formula, so many explosions, so many romantic misunderstandings, so many parties gone wrong, so many remakes, so many reboots and so many re-imaginings. I don’t even think that last one is really a word.

This isn’t a cry for sympathy, but maybe for understanding. At least it will help explain why critics would champion a film like Holy Motors, a chaotic yet sublimely introspective, barely-narrative experiment in filmmaking; part art film, part anthology, part actor’s exercise, part inside joke. And a film that every multiplex in the country would vomit out the nearest illuminated fire exit.

Holy Motors is inexplicable, but there is a thread one can follow. That thread is pulled by Mr. Oscar (Denis Lavant), who is introduced in the film as a soft-spoken business professional. But his stretch limo is outfitted with an elaborate make-up studio and a wide array of props with which he adopts different disguises for each “appointment.” Who he’s working for, what role he plays, and what the purpose of these “appointments” are is never revealed. We are simply witnesses to Mr. Oscar’s bizarre transformations: from beggar to freak, from disappointed father to dying uncle, from assassin to lover.

French director Leos Carax populates his film with a barrage of references to other films and cinema in general. Holy Motors is self-reflexive of scenes from throughout film history – from silents to musicals to weepy melodramas - and yet unlike any of them as a whole. Ironically, despite being about the cinematic experience, it’s hard to imagine general audiences sitting though it. Holy Motors exists entirely outside the known narrative universe. It challenges and frustrates with an air of artistic pretension that dares one to not “get it.”

One gloriously cohesive moment occurs mid-film during an intermission spoof in which Levant wanders a warehouse pounding out a catchy dirge on an accordion. As he circles the place pointlessly, he’s joined by an entire orchestra of anonymous musicians who turn the small solo into a symphonic tour de force. It’s a unconnected, unexpected moment that does what cinema so often fails to do for us as an audience anymore: surprise us.