The average film is made up of over 150,000 individual images or “frames” displayed one after the other at high speed. If it is projected using 35mm film, a shutter will momentarily close between each frame, preventing any light from leaving the projector while the frame changes. This means that if you’re watching a film projected in 35mm, for half the film you are sat in complete darkness!
Despite this, the mind buys into the illusion and we are left watching what appears to be a continuous stretch of moving images. The wonderful art of film is capable of producing from this an experience that we often enjoy very much and occasionally provides something more, something so sublime that we are left speechless by the end. Parts of the film Holy Motors were, for me, the very definition of sublime.
Primarily composed of a selection of wildly different vignettes, Holy Motors is on one level a day in the life of a Parisian man who is chauffeured around in a limousine from place to place as he carries out his daily business. Looked at in a wider sense, it can be seen as a tribute to cinema itself. In its broadest, it is an exploration on the meaning of life.
By the time the credits begin to roll, your mind begins to race, probing and analysing the previous two hours of film that you have just witnessed. What does it all mean? Does it even have a deeper meaning? The important thing is that it makes you think. In an age when cinema seems to be becoming less cerebral and on the whole taking itself a lot less seriously, this film certainly bucks that trend.
In the middle of the film is an “interlude” that is truly magical. I don’t wish to say too much as I believe it’s best experienced fresh to have the full emotional effect but that one scene says more about what it means to be alive than most films from 2012 put together. The result is three minutes of pure unadulterated joy.
Holy Motors reminded me exactly what films are all about, the reason why we go to the cinema in the first place. Watch a string of mediocre films in a row and it’s easy to get stuck in a film viewing rut but watching Holy Motors reinvigorated my passion for great cinema and made me remember the glorious power that films have when they are at their creative best.
Prepare to laugh, prepare to be overjoyed, prepare to be shocked, prepare to be dumbfounded. Strap yourself in as Holy Motors is one hell of a ride.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about Holy Motors if you are lucky enough to have seen it already.
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Fractalis - An ongoing journal 