“Holy Motors”

The line between “real life” and “cinema” is increasingly blurred. Even as film as an art has fractured into genres and subgenres and taken on techniques and stories that are larger than life or downright surreal, we still collectively acclaim the human moments and performances. The moments of intimacy, of true life, splashed before us on a screen where we can confront the best and worst in us as a species resonate, even in the midst of outsized theatricality or sequences torn from an acid trip.

From such a perspective, Holy Motors can be viewed as a commentary on acting as a profession. Denis Levant moves through 11 different roles in Holy Motors, which comprises eleven vignettes, each a complete miniature film. Several deal directly with issues of the film industry; one takes place entirely in a motion-capture room. Another, featuring Eva Mendes, deals with issues of beauty and misogyny. Levant, at one point in this French film, says that the cameras have become too small and he doesn’t know who he’s performing for anymore.

But that’s a very narrow lens. Levant himself has said that Holy Motors is “a love letter to the human race as it is today,” although he wryly concedes that writer/director Leos Carax doesn’t agree with him.

Not just about actors or acting, then, Holy Motors is rather about the playing of roles, which is something entirely different. We all play roles, or wear masks. We groom, make-up and costume ourselves to suit particular situations. You wouldn’t  jog in a cocktail dress or attend a funeral in your pajamas. We play at being workers, at being parents, at being lovers, but keep these roles in separate compartments.

These are simple roles, simple masks, simple alterations to ourselves. But what happens when we forget that a complete person lives underneath the roles we play and the masks we wear? When we change mask for mask and role for role in continuous, never-ending succession, what happens to us? Do we forget, as Levant says, who we are performing for or why? “What’s my motivation?” goes the famous bratty-actor line, but it’s not just a catchphrase. Without a motivation and an understanding of why we do what we do, it becomes difficult or even impossible to continue.

Even further than that, what happens when we internalize the idea that what we do is just a role we are playing, separate from some concept of our self-hood? When being a lover, even being a parent, is something we do for external reasons, a thing assigned to us? How do we ever achieve intimacy?

Film allows us to press our eyes to the crack of others’ lives. We love to be able to peer in and think “This is better!” or “That is worse!” But when emotion is something you put on and take off with a coat or a hat or a wig, no matter how moving your portrayal of the feeling, you are not feeling it. Even the messiest movie story has an end, a point when we no longer press an eye to that crack. Life doesn’t work that way.

Holy Motors was brought to Milwaukee exclusively as part of Milwaukee Film’s Member Screening series. The one-night engagement at the Oriental Theater brought forth hordes of movie-goers, complete with out-the-door lines reminiscent of the film festival. Holy Motors deserved the attention. MFF continues to bring challenging, eye-opening film to our city year-round.