Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)

[Jeff]

Apparently this blew the minds of most at Cannes.

HOLY MOTORS: Leos Carax, the anti-Hulot, traces a chameleon's rage & love across Paris. Dualities abound; utterly cool. ‪

Rejoice! HOLY MOTORS is beautiful, inscrutable, frightening, idiotic, ecstatic, makes Pola X look like The King's Speech. Best in Comp? Oui.

Holy Motors - so singularly weird and exhilaratingly cinematic that it doesn't even matter what it means. Awesome.

Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax) is just mad enough to win the Palme D'Or

Holy Motors (Carax): 88. Holy shit.

I am dizzy in love with "Holy Motors." If that was the only film I saw here, it would have been worth the trip.

HOLY MOTORS! HOLY MOTORS! HOLY MOTORS! HOLY MOTORS! HOLY MOTORS! HOLY MOTORS! Best of ‪#Cannes‬ thus far, Carax's MULHOLLAND DR. (More soon.)

Carax's Holy Motors was a holy mess of nutso go-for-broke filmmaking--wild, surreal and fully committed. Crazed applause to match. ‪#cannes

Re: HOLY MOTORS, Twitter has now successfully conveyed in words the sound of hundreds of jaws collectively agape.

Btw, if you've never seen Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, (a) for shame! and (b) try to do so before seeing HOLY MOTORS. A bit important.

And several intriguing comments from Anita Singh;

Holy Motors: HOLY CRAP IT'S WEIRD. Makes Blue Velvet look like an episode of Friends

Sample Holy Motors scene: Eva Mendes in a burka, singing a lullaby to a naked man with an erection who just ate her hair

Now Holy Motors has turned into a Kylie musical. She's playing a woman wearing an air hostess's eyes. Don't ask

The man who eats Eva's hair also has motion capture sex with a kind of space lizard #HolyMotors

[Cold Bishop]

Can't tell you how excited I am about this. Carax's near-absence during the last decade was an absolute travesty. Hopefully this can allow him to get those "ambitious" projects off the ground that's he been planning.

[John Edmond]

Ditto a thousand times. Only Merde got me through it all.

[carax09]

Now we're talkin'. I can't believe I let that yoshimori capsule dismissal momentarily override the optimism I'd been feeling about this project.

[domino harvey]

I don't understand, based on what people are saying this sounds like fancy pants Adult Swim nonsense. It may in fact be brilliant, I just don't think it sounds so based on any of this kind of feedback...

[John Cope]

I don't understand, based on what people are saying this sounds like fancy pants Adult Swim nonsense. It may in fact be brilliant, I just don't think it sounds so based on any of this kind of feedback...

+1. Though I've never like Carax much so that may well bias my opinion here.

[mfunk9786]

Is there a proper trailer out there? Maybe I just can't find it.

[zedz]

I'm just glad to be able to see new work by Carax. Even when his films are a mess, he's an effortlessly cinematic filmmaker, of a breed that seems to be dying out. I hope some kind of official acknowledgement at Cannes will help get his career back on track.

[John Edmond]

I don't understand, based on what people are saying this sounds like fancy pants Adult Swim nonsense. It may in fact be brilliant, I just don't think it sounds so based on any of this kind of feedback...

What's being taken for a given is execution. Adult Swim is anti-technique, Carax is pure tumbling rhythm. That first simple cut as Lavant careens up the street in Merde still gives me giddy grin - even if it's just Carax drawing out a long take before cutting on action to give it a pop. That he then almost instantly cuts again, turning it into a disco clap is why I love Carax.

[Jeff]

Send Denis Lavant the Cannes best actor prize right now for HOLY MOTORS. His credit is "Denis Lavant X 11"; it's Lon Chaney Jr. revived.

Carax's HOLY MOTORS is easily in a place by itself as the most alive and imaginative film so far in the Cannes competition. Carax is back.

HOLY MOTORS has the fluidity and chameleonic quality of a great musical, & a lovely musical number starring Kylie Minogue. Best song,maybe?

Carax tributes in the HOLY MOTORS credits Claire Denis, Henry James and George Franju, but a missing credit worth adding is Lewis Carroll.

Carax said, "If Denis [Lavant] had said no, I would have offered the part to Lon Chaney or to Chaplin. Or to Peter Lorre or Michel Simon."

[knives]

Maybe the insane press kit will give Domino the insight he wishes to see.

[mfunk9786]

I can't say that helps the film's case...

[Quot]

Is there a proper trailer out there? Maybe I just can't find it.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/mediaPlayer/12214.html

[mfunk9786]

Thank you!

[Finch]

Peter Bradshaw loves it, Jonathan Romney (another UK critic I quite like) found it terrible. The polarising responses make me all the more eager to see the film (not seen anything else by Carax though should at least track down Pont-Neuf).

[Mathew2468]

Holy Motors Full Press Conference - Cannes Film Festival 2012

I saw it here, it's probably on Cannes' website.

[Mathew2468]

Without having seen any of the films at Cannes I hope he wins it. It'd be better for him than Haneke or Kiarostami.

[Mathew2468]

Holy Motors cost only € 3.9 million. The trailer had me thinking it was something of a super production, and I wondered how he managed it considering his other bombs.

[whaleallright]

Holy Motors was picked up for U.S. distribution by Indomina, a little distributor that has a ... weird track record. They've focused on indie horror, but have also distributed a few Hong Kong films (To's Life without Principle, Tsui's Detective Dee). They're pretty young, so I wonder if their strategy has been to milk the horror market for cash and use that to start buying more upscale properties?

I'm pretty certain this film will never play in my (smaller urban) market. I hope it at least makes it past N.Y. and L.A.

[knives]

A couple of their releases have made it to San Diego which suggests the potential for a better distribution than I would have expected.

[zedz]

Carax filmmaker thread is up.

[swo17]

In case anyone didn't already want to see this:

[mfunk9786]

Is there a U.S. release date yet? I heard that Indomina picked it up, but nothing else. I'm seeing it at the Philadelphia Film Festival in three weeks time, very excited to see what side I fall on in terms of the film's quality/relevance. It's my first Carax, so I have no idea whatsover w/r/t what to expect.

[James]

A U.S. schedule must have recently been posted, because I remember looking for showtimes last week and there was nothing. Here it is!

[Jeff]

Nice! Just posted recently indeed. Last week I was scouring their site and tweeting at Indomina to no avail. They've spelled Denver's Chez Artiste theater Chez Artistie, which makes it sound even goofier than its actual name.