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The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane] The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie. [Seen on a plane]

    The Intouchables (Intouchables) by  Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano

    Because the premise of the story is such nauseatingly manipulative sentimental crap, and because the very first line that appears on screen is “based on a true story” [sigh + eyes rolling], I braced myself for the worse and was ready to enjoy hating that film. But alas, I quickly bought into the schmaltz and was won over by it. Mainly because the two leads were excellent and their bromance hard to resist… So Schmaltzy, oh que oui, but still a fine buddy movie.

    [Seen on a plane]

    JR’s art projects by Matt Black

    Nowness:

    Young people stare up at the sky from a Hong Kong bridge and a meters-long nude odalisque reclines along the banks of the Seine in artist JR’s infamous posters, explored in a new short from NOWNESS regular Matt Black. The massive, iconic images can be found hand-pasted to crumbling buildings, trains, garbage trucks and bridges, whimsically reclaiming the urban landscape. Now a TED Prize-winner, semi-anonymous JR grew up in the suburbs of Paris and began tagging and “exhibiting” on the streets as a teen. When he found a camera on the Metro, he started taking photographs. Now he’s shaking things up with a new system that allows everyone to print and post works in their own neighborhoods, all for free. “It’s true art. That’s why people want to participate,” says Black, who caught up with the self-described “photograffeur” as part of his Reflections series. Today JR, who views the city as “the biggest gallery in the world,” also shows in more traditional spaces, including Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin and the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Los Angeles MoCA, collaborating with artists such as Jose Parlà and Takashi Murakami. “He’s creating this monster project,” reflects the director, “showing that we’re all human—all equal.”

    Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Synopsis via Wild Bunch: We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man… It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer. Where is his home, his family, his rest? Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian: The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps. Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012.  Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment.

      Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax

      Synopsis via Wild Bunch:

      We follow 24 hours in the life of a being (Monsieur Oscar played by Denis Lavant) moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old to the point of dying; sometimes destitute, sometimes wealthy. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man…

      It’s clear that Monsieur Oscar is playing roles, and plunging headfirst into each – but where are the cameras, the crew, the director? He seems horribly alone, exhausted from being chained to all these lives that are not his, from having to kill enemies that are not his enemies, having to embrace wives and children who are not his. But sometimes, conversely, we feel Monsieur Oscar is wounded by having to leave, the moment his scene is over, other beings he would have liked to leave no longer.

      Where is his home, his family, his rest?

      Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian:

      The French film-maker Leos Carax, director of Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Pola X, has made his first feature in 13 years, and it is a bizarre surrealist odyssey whose magic ingredient is comedy. This is a gorgeous furry teacup of a film, preposterous and filled with secrets; it is itself one big secret. Holy Motors is simultaneously immersive and alienating. The audience is forever being encouraged to forget about narrative sense and slip into a warm bath of unreason, but persistently jolted back out of it with non-sequiturs, accordion interludes, gags and unexpected chimps.

      Despite the fact I’m a fervent hater of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, I completely embraced Holy Motors (right from the intro sequence featuring Leos Carax himself)… One of my favourite films of 2012. 

      Holy Motors is surreal, beautiful and extremely sad in my opinion. Although I recognise the comedy Peter Bradshaw is referring to, I couldn’t help but interpret everything in the film as deeply tragic… Especially the chimps, Monsieur Oscar’s last and most depressing appointment.

      Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor.  Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors: Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer. This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within. […] Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment. In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo. Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor. 

        Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax

        Monsieur Oscar in his limo/dressing room

        “They’re outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines.” — Leos Carax on limousines

        San Francisco Bay Guardian: The “limo operas” of 2012: Cosmopolis and Holy Motors:

        Two of 2012’s finest, most philosophical, and most frustrating movies share a setting of sorts. Although one film takes place in New York, the other in Paris, both films’ protagonists spend a lot of time in their white stretch limousines. The limo: an ostentatious symbol of status and wealth, a home away from home. In David Cronenberg’s unsettling Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis, it’s superwealthy magnate Eric Packer (a defanged Robert Pattinson) who eats, fucks, and talks business in a limo, trapped in ever-worsening NYC traffic. For Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the limousine is also place of business. When I first saw Holy Motors, I noted the “limo-as-liminal-space” — Oscar’s limousine is his dressing room, a place of transformation for the chameleonic arch-performer.

        This common factor, though coincidental, is not accidental. The limousine as symbol and space is crucial to the structure of both films, which I’ve taken half-facetiously to calling “limo operas.” In both, white stretch limos are distinctive cells in the secret circulatory system of late capitalist society. Their passengers have a privileged viewpoint — they can see out, but others can’t see in. When the camera joins the passengers inside the limo, the city becomes an almost unreal backdrop for the private activities within.

        […]

        Oscar’s limo in Holy Motors is perhaps less of a grand statement to the public, but it’s still a sort of grandiose contradiction on wheels. Oscar is an actor who fulfills “appointments” — enigmatic, prearranged convergences with other lives, where he transmutes into elaborately conceived new beings, for an audience of no one and everyone. When another strange figure, the critic to Oscar’s artist, appears in the limo, Oscar explains his less convincing performances as a result of technological progress: “I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.” And so he prepares for his appointments in an eminently visible, garishly substantial machine. In the world of Holy Motors, white stretch limos are apparently markers of Oscar’s trade — when his limo collides with another, it is coincidentally also carrying a performer, his old flame, en route to her own appointment.

        In contrast to Cosmopolis, Carax’s film gives a glimpse inside the occluded space of the garage where limos sleep — literally. In its amusing and crucial final scene, Holy Motors returns to the titular motor pool, and eavesdrops on the after-hours gossiping of an entire fleet of sentient limousines. One laments that they’ll soon all be junked, and another agrees: “Men don’t want visible machines anymore.” But visible machines are precisely what Oscar wants, so he makes his office in a limo.

        Both Packer and Oscar are aging, battling obsolescence while stubbornly clinging to old operating procedures. In these two films, deeply entrenched in commenting on the withering progress of postmodern life, the stretch limo is a loud, defiant holdout. You might even call it a relic — it is, after all, a holy motor. 


        On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost. On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans. Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death.  I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost.

          On a vingt minutes pour rattraper vingt ans.

          Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax

          My favourite sequence takes place inside the now defunct Parisian department store, La Samaritaine. A very melancholic and tragic scene between Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue… Lost love, Actor’s fatigue, Death. 

          I wasted a few of my summers working at La Samaritaine and I hated the experience with a passion. That being said, the building was (and still is) truly majestic, and the view from the roof terrace was breathtaking. But as an abandoned building in Holy Motors, La Samaritaine has never looked as beautiful and atmospheric. I was watching that sequence and I almost felt a pang of nostalgia. Almost.