How
does a French lunatic living in Tokyo’s sewers get back to Paris? Such details hardly matter. What is important is the subterranean freak
seen in Léos Carax’s contribution to the anthology film Tokyo! is actually one of many personas adopted by Monsieur
Oscar. The mysterious performer will
travel through Paris for a series of “appointments” that blur the distinction
between performance and reality in Carax’s genre-defying Holy Motors (trailer
here), which
opens this Wednesday at Film Forum, after generating all kinds of critical
acclaim and confusion at the recently wrapped 50th New York Film
Festival.
Monsieur
Oscar starts his day as a wealthy family man, but after his chauffeur Céline
picks him up, he transforms himself into an old beggar woman in the backseat of
the limousine. At his next appointment,
he becomes a high tech martial artist for a mo-cap animation production. After that, Monsieur Oscar heads into the
sewers, once again becoming the notorious Merde, who will kidnap a fashion model
to recreate the Pieta, by way of King Kong.
As
the day progresses, Monsieur Oscar will confront his doppelganger, reunite with
a former lover, and die twice, but the show always goes on. We are given clues that there is indeed an
audience for his work, by no less an authority than Michel Piccolli (appearing as
a character simply known “The Man with the Birthmark”), but questions like who
and how are never answered. Allusions
fly fast and furious while the appointments become increasingly emotional,
subversively inviting viewers to invest in episodes they have been conditioned
to be skeptical of.
Conceived
specifically for Levant, Motors features
about eleven unclassifiable performances from its chameleon-like lead. It is hard to give an exact number because
the boundaries between characters are often deliberately porous. (Of course, Merde can only be Merde.) Internationally renowned for Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, Edith Scob further
complicates audience expectations as Céline, who sort of but not really
interacts with Monsieur Oscar in unexpected and intriguing ways. (She also has a scene with another mask.)
Perhaps
the most impressive aspect of Motors is
its kitchen sink-ness. One gets the
impression that everything Carax dreamed up for the film made its way into the
final cut. As trippy and mind-bending as
it all might be, Carax maintains a profound sense of melancholy that stays with
viewers far longer than his surreal eccentricities. Especially cinematic is an episode played
atop a shuttered Parisian department store that still bears hints of its former
grandeur. In fact, several appointments would stand alone perfectly well as
short films, which is an important test for such an episodic film.
