Final Post

For my final post, for many reasons, I would like to focus on the film Holy Motors. This film has stuck with me for the past few weeks. The film brings us into multiple different worlds, all while keeping us in one world. Because the film is so unrealistic, the unreal starts to seem real. Holy Motors brings us into a world without consequences. The film challenges our way of thinking and viewing the world.

The film starts in a dark theater. One thing to point out is that the audience eyes are actually closed. Which leads me to ask, who exactly is the intended audience? Are we? What world are we actually apart of? I would hope to have these questions answered. Although the film really does not leave us with any certainty whatsoever. Which is part of the reason why it is so great.

We dive into the movie. I almost forgot it was a film within a film. There are very few clues pointing to the fact that we are viewing a film within a film. One of them being, the audience in the beginning, of which all of them have there eyes closed. There is also a reminder every time the main character, Mr. Oscar, changes characters-- which I will dig into later. The third reminder comes into play when the boss visits Mr. Oscar in his limo. Olsen explains that the cameras have just gotten smaller over time. Even he may forget that he is acting for someone.

Every time the main character changes into a different character I do not question the reality of the situation. The costumes are great as well. Anyway—In Holy Motors, the unreal fades into the real. I did not question the reality of any situation, because I was already conditioned to expect the unreal. We are very much in a dream world. A world without consequence.  A world where Oscar can kill a man and jump back into the limo without any issue. We are the ones watching Mr. Oscars acting. As the film goes on, he seems to grow tired.

One of my favorite, and really most disturbing parts of the film is when Mr. Oscar is running in front of a CGI screen. He is three dimensional, but everything behind him is two-dimensional. That is, everything playing on the screen is two-dimensional. He is in a suit. The suit he is wearing is almost an elastic athletic suit, with little balls on it to detect motion. It is skintight. The whole atmosphere is very dark. His suit is black, the surrounding area is black. The only illuminated comes from the screen behind him. This was very much appealing to my eyes. It made me wonder, “What exactly is he doing?” Considering this was near the beginning of the film, I really had no idea what I was about to witness. He is running on this treadmill and ends up falling. After awhile, we witness a character change. He seems to change into a snake like creature mating with another snakelike creature. Which was extremely weird. It also set the tone for the film. There were going to be unrealistic things happening. But they are going to start feeling real.

Another crazy part of the film is when Mr. Oscar turns into a leprechaun monstrous creature. He runs through a public area and grabs a lady to take with him down to the dumpster. Before grabbing the lady, he bites the fingers off some innocent bystander. Why did this have to happen? This part was deeply disturbing for me because, well, who does that? The monster seemed relatively harmless after that. He then changes characters into a man playing the bagpipes. We watch him march and play music with other men. There was absolutely no consequence to his action.

One thing that I have mentioned in a previous post is that “the camera acts like an accomplice.” Would the actor be doing all of these things if it were not for the camera? No, probably not. He is doing these things for an intended audience. Although it may not be clear whom that intended audience is.

Another part in the film worth noting is when Mr. Oscar plays a young girls father. He picks up this girl from one of her friend’s houses. He asks her if she had enjoyed herself. She says yes and basically lies about everything. The father catches her in this lie and is very upset. This has to be one of the most “real” scenes in the Holy Motors. Perhaps it seems real because I can relate to it. I have lied to my father before and I have been scolded for it. But Mr. Oscar was almost offended that his daughter would lie to her. This is when we really start to see the toll that the rolls Oscar has played are taking on him. Mr. Oscar is growing tired. He explains to his daughter, well the character that he is playing daughter that she will need to be punished. He asks her if she would do it again if she knew that she would not get caught. She says yes, she probably would. He then drops her off at her mother’s house. She asks him about her punishment. He responds, “Your punishment, my poor Angèle, is to be you. To have to live with yourself.”

Just when things start to almost seem normal, they change abruptly. The only constant in this film is the limo. WE have no idea who the main character is. Who exactly is the main character? It seems to be a big mystery. His true self really isn’t revealed. Maybe the closest reveal we have is of him and the limo driver sharing a laugh. Even at the end of the film, we are led to believe he is going home to his family, when in actuality he is just playing another role. He ends up going home to a family of gorillas. This is how Holy Motors messes with expectations. Just when I thought that we would be given closure I was proved wrong. But, I think it is great in that way. The film challenges our way of thinking and viewing things.