Holy Motors

Running time: 116 minutes

Director: Leos Carax

Starring: Michel Piccoli, Kylie Minogue, Eva Mendes, Edith Scob, Denis Lavant

Erstwhile enfant terrible of French cinema (THE NIGHT IS YOUNG, POLA X) Leos Carax’s first feature after a 13-year hiatus is a tour de force that disconcertingly melds reality, fantasy and voyeurism. Oscar (veteran French actor/clown Denis Lavant) is chauffeured around Paris by ice-cool Céline (the venerable Edith Scob) in her stretch limo-cum-theatrical dressing room.

In a series of jaw-dropping set pieces, he emerges from the limo in various guises – as an ancient beggar crone, an assassin, a balletic cyber-man, and many more. Oscar’s motives and true persona are tantalisingly ambiguous thanks to Lavant’s mesmerising performance, and there are impressively against-type turns from Kylie Minogue and Eva Mendes.

Carax playfully references his celluloid forebears, and Scob’s last scene reprises her role in Franju’s EYES WITHOUT A FACE. If you like David Lynch, Luis Buñuel, Charlie Kaufmann or David Fincher’s THE GAME, you’ll be delightfully dazed by HOLY MOTORS.

• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on Facebook
• Share on LinkedIn