The film is a parade of pseudo-intellectual claptrap, a mere montage of disjointed oddity; it has no direction, it just presents the viewer with one weird, meaningless image after another. I derive no positive emotion from a film that relies solely on ambiguous subtext, surrealism and symbolism.
I began to lose faith in the film by the 40 minute mark, each minute after that began to drag severely. There are scenes that are well acted and quite touching, but when they're thrown into this mess they're completely wasted. Some people have been flabbergasted by the suggestion that it's 'boring', I don't see what's so surprising about that, how can you be engaged by something that's so utterly meaningless?
Some people have praised its imagery, waffling on about how it 'celebrates the medium'. I agree it's striking and unconventional, but that's all it is; the best films achieve in both celebrating the medium of film and delivering strong, engaging narratives, whether they're simple or complex. Any idiot can throw together two hours of sheer meaningless oddity and claim it to be 'metaphorical' – it's weak filmmaking.
Even fans of the film have no idea what's going on, however many of them seem to relish mustering up their own vague, self-aggrandising interpretations of it. Although there are those who genuinely enjoy such ambiguity and have an honest approach to analysing the film, there are many that don't.
These are people who are likely to fiercely defend the film; typically, they will patronisingly label the film's critics as ignoramuses who need their narratives to be 'spoon-fed' to them. I cringe to think about the scores of obnoxiously pseudo-intellectual people who will attempt to revel in the utter poppycock that 'Holy Motors' serves by the shovel load. I apologise for such strong language, but it irks me.
This is as bad as avant-garde cinema gets; it's nothing more than an indulgence by Leos Carax.
10%
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