Holy Motors is not an easy film for me to describe. At first glance, the film seems to be a series of, seemingly unrelated, vignettes, all of which feature a mysterious character, by the name of Monsieur Oscar, playing a different persona. The film doesn't seem to have a traditional narrative, other than a framing device, in which Oscar travels to his different “appointments” via limo. In some ways, I would argue that the narrative structure Holy Motors is a call-back to the surrealist films of Luis Buñuel, most notably his 1974 film The Phantom of Liberty, which also has a vignette-based plot. I would also say that the film is a self-reflexive examination of cinema, with each of Oscar's appointments being representative of a different cinematic style. This is definitely not a film that everyone is going to “get” on their first viewing and even I still need to process the film a bit. In fact, there are some elements in the film that may end up turning off some viewers. However, I would say that Holy Motors was an interesting film to say the least and you would be lying if you didn't have anything to say about it afterwards. 8 | LIKED IT
