Holy Motors (2012)

From dawn to dusk, a few hours in the shadowy life of a mystic man named Monsieur Oscar.

Director:

Leos Carax

Writer:

Leos Carax (screenplay)

Stars:

Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes

29 wins & 68 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Denis Lavant	...	Mr. Oscar / Le Banquier / La Mendiante / L'O.S de la Motion Capture / M. Merde / Le Père / L'Accordéoniste / Le Tueur / Le Tué / Le Mourant / L'Homme au Foyer
Edith Scob	...	Céline (as Édith Scob)
Eva Mendes	...	Kay M
Kylie Minogue	...	Eva Grace (Jean)
Elise Lhomeau	...	Léa (Élise)
Jeanne Disson	...	Angèle
Michel Piccoli	...	L'Homme à la tache de vin
Leos Carax	...	Le Dormeur / Voix Limousine (as LC)
Nastya Golubeva Carax	...	La Petite Fille
Reda Oumouzoune	...	L'Acrobate Mocap
Zlata	...	La Cyber-Femme
Geoffrey Carey	...	Le Photographe / Voix Limousine
Annabelle Dexter-Jones	...	L'assistante photographe
Elise Caron
Corinne Yam

Storyline

In a dark movie theater filled with people watching a film. A man is sleeping on a bed with a sleeping dog next to another empty twin bed with the same sheets. He gets up and looks out the window and we see he is the man who's name is Mr. Oscar.

---

Plot Keywords:

insanity | graveyard | male full frontal nudity | movie theater | dog | 

---

Genres:

Drama | Fantasy

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

France Germany

Language:

French English Chinese

Release Date:

4 July 2012 (France)

Also Known As:

Sveti motori

Filming Locations:

Pont Alexandre III, Paris 7, Paris, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pierre Grise Productions,Théo Films,Pandora Filmproduktion

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The character Monsieur Merde is partly based on Opale, a character in Jean Renoir's 1959 television film Experiment in Evil (1959), in turn based on Mr Hyde in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde".

---

Quotes

Angèle: I'll be punished?
Mr. Oscar: Yes. Your punishment, my poor Angèle, is to be you. To have to live with yourself.

---

Crazy Credits

"Katya, for you" with a picture of Yekaterina Golubeva during the closing credits.

---

Connections

Featured in Drive in Holy Motors (2013)

---

Soundtracks

Godzilla - Main Title
Written by Akira Ifukube

User Reviews

Holy ___________!

I suspect that viewers will either love or hate "Holy Motors," a surreal French drama that eventually falls victim to its own pretentiousness.

It tells the tale of an actor/quick-change artist who rides around Paris in a specially designed stretch-limo, donning various costumes and enacting bizarre movie-type scenes for paying customers. One moment he's a sewer-dwelling beast in search of a "beauty;" the next he's a hit man , then a female beggar, then a dying old man, even, at one point, a CGI effect come to life.

Written and directed by Leos Carax, the movie ultimately emerges as a cinematic Rorschach Test, open to whichever interpretation each member of the audience cares to get out of it. Is it about how we all eventually wind up donning masks and false identities as a means of escaping the crushing monotony of our daily lives? Or is it about how we use such masks to avoid showing ourselves and the world-at-large who we really are? Or is it a dissertation on the nature of art and the artist, or on the changing nature of movie making in an era in which the camera has become a ubiquitous part of everyday life, available to anyone and everyone at all times?

Who knows, and, frankly, who really cares? In terms of execution, Carax lacks the light hand and delicate touch of a Luis Bunuel from his late French period. "Holy Motors," on the other hand, is redundant and, at times, downright unpleasant, and much too impressed with its own cleverness to be of much interest to any but the most esoteric-minded of viewers. But the Paris locales are nice.