Weirdest thing I've seen in the cinema for a long while - I loved the gasps of surprise when he bit that girl's fingers off - but what was it about? Everyone keeps saying "It's about cinema" and maybe it is but is that all that there is to it? I'm not convinced.
I'm not saying that it's not about cinema, I'm saying that that answer doesn't go far enough, I'd like to go further into what it's about. I was just disappointed to hear someone saying "oh it's about cinema" and then moving on to the next thing as though it were all figured out. What does it mean for a film to be about cinema? Does that simply describe a film in which many scenes reference or parody or relate to other films? Is Carax just saying that he likes films, if so I find that a bit disappointing after two hours of craziness. Why call it Holy Motors? Was there not some kind of two-tier reality in which those who went around in the mysterious limos (and their even more mysterious limos) were separate from and in fact above the non-acting members of society? I wondered if they represented some kind of superior being - maybe servants of some kind of God (hence the holy)... but how could this fit with the theory? Even if it's not this then how does the cinema theory explain this part of the film?"Well, what is it about then and why are you not convinced? There's so so so much stuff that means it is clearly about film - performance, the motion capture scene, the extracts from Muybridge, the beginning ... what are you offering as an alternative hypothesis?"
Not at all, I was just saying that I wanted further exploration, that's why I created a thread rather than sticking it in the generic film threads."You seem to be saying that the film should create a coherent, logical, internal universe (a closed set of references)"
Interesting. Certainly sounds like the same character. I would like to check that film but I'm not that optimistic it would tell me a lot more about Holy Motors."Merde"
Directed by Léos Carax.
Merde (French for "shit") is the name given to an unkempt, gibberish-spewing subterranean creature of the Tokyo sewers, played by Denis Lavant, who rises from the underground lair where he dwells to attack unsuspecting locals in increasingly brazen and terrifying ways: he steals cash and cigarettes from passersby, frightens old women and salaciously licks schoolgirls, resulting in a televised media frenzy that creates mounting hysteria among the Tokyo populace. After discovering an arsenal of hand grenades in his underground lair, Merde slips into full-on assault mode, hurling the munitions at random citizens and creating a Godzilla-like atmosphere of urban terror, which the media promptly laps up and reflects back to its equally voracious television audience. Enter pompous French magistrate Maître Voland (Jean-François Balmer) — a dead ringer for the sewer creature's gnarled and twisted demeanor — who arrives in Tokyo to represent Merde's inevitable televised trial, claiming to be one of only three in the world able to speak his client's unintelligible language. The media circus mounts as lawyer defends client in a surreal court of law hungry for a satisfying resolution. Merde is tried, convicted and sentenced to death — until justice takes an unexpected turn.
I'm not certain that that's a weakness - if you can't ever build on an assumed knowledge base then you're always going to be starting again in everything you do."I'd say a weakness of the film was that one had to be familiar with a lot of the filmic references to "get it" - I guess you could level this critique at a lot of post modern art - while reference spotting is fun, it makes me wonder what sort of integrity the film has without this kind of gaming."
Not at all, I was just saying that I wanted further exploration, that's why I created a thread rather than sticking it in the generic film threads.
Monsieur Merde
Interesting. Certainly sounds like the same character. I would like to check that film but I'm not that optimistic it would tell me a lot more about Holy Motors.
I'm not certain that that's a weakness - if you can't ever build on an assumed knowledge base then you're always going to be starting again in everything you do.
"I suppose I was trying to describe the experience of being alive in the internet world. The different lives we are able to live. The fatigue of being oneself. We all get a little tired of being ourselves sometimes. The answer is to reinvent yourself, but how do you do that and what is the cost?" He twirls his cigarette. "I know that's true for me. I feel as though I've exhausted a few lives already."
“Holy Motors” was born of my incapacity to carry out several
projects, all of them in another language and another country. They all ran into the
same two obstacles: casting and cash. Fed up with not being able to film, I used
“Merde”, which had been commissioned in Japan, as inspiration. I commissioned
myself to make a project under the same conditions, but in France - come up with
an inexpensive film, quickly, for a pre-selected actor.
All of it made possible by digital cameras, which I despise (they are imposing
themselves or being imposed on us), but which seem to reassure everyone.
Leos Carax: There’s never any initial idea or intention behind a film, but rather
a couple of images and feelings that I splice together.
For “Holy Motors”, one of the images I had in mind was of these stretch
limousines that have appeared in the last few years. I first saw them in America
and now every Sunday in my neighborhood in Paris for Chinese weddings.
They’re completely in tune with our times - both showy and tacky. They look
good from the outside, but inside there’s the same sad feeling as in a whores’
hotel. They still touch me, though. They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of
the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.
These cars very soon became the heart of the film - its motor, if I may put it that
way. I imagined them as long vessels carrying humans on their final journeys,
their final assignments.
The film is therefore a form of science fiction, in which humans, beasts and
machines are on the verge of extinction - “sacred motors” linked together by a
common fate and solidarity, slaves to an increasingly virtual world. A world from
which visible machines, real experiences and actions are gradually disappearing.
people tend to use such references as a put-down; why not in film and art?