Holy Motors

In creating a showcase for his star Denis Lavant, who plays either seventeen roles or one role with seventeen personas, director Leos Carax has designed a beautiful and confounding art film that explores concepts of performance and identity. The film is surreal and magical but still planted firmly in some kind of real-world Parisian nighttime. Lavant’s physical and emotional acting prowess is staggering and each “assignment” he takes on is like a little short film that stands on its own, yet the movie never feels episodic or meandering. It’s a dream film of the kind that only the French can do, and I found it exhilarating, though I’m not really sure what Carax is trying to say. It is certainly a statement about identity and perceptions, and I also think it has something to do with love of cinema and its diminishing power in the world, but maybe that’s just what I want it to be about. When Edith Scob puts on her Eyes Without a Face mask and walks into darkness, I’m pretty sure I get the point, but this is the kind of film that deserves to be watched again and again and discussed at length.