Holy Motors

What is more important, a theme of the movie or how it is presented? That's what I wondered after watching Leos Carax's latest picture "Holy Motors". It's a movie without classical narrative but it seems to talk of many things. In it we see a man named Oscar, driven through the streets of Paris in a big limousine, assume many different roles as a part of his job. He becomes an old woman, a motion-capture actor, a dying man and a head of the family of monkeys amongst else, each of his roles having another kind of story, conveying diverse emotions and different messages. In between his roles Oscar changes clothes and make-up, talks with his chauffeur, gets a visit from who seems to be his employer, and has a chance meeting with his former love.
The movie opens with a shot of an audience in a theatre and thus from the beginning makes us aware that it speaks of cinema. One of the first things we conclude is that Oscar is some kind of an actor whose job is to play a couple of different roles every day with other actors like him, all of them being driven around in big limousines. That assumption is confirmed when his employee appears and Oscar complains that he can't get in the role as well as he used to since he can't see the cameras because of how small they became. Also, his name immediately brings to mind the most famous American movie award, and we can easily see him as a metaphor for the award for best actor, his performances as ones for which the award has been given, and a critique from his employee as a critique of the Oscars. But that's not all that points to American cinema. At the beginning of the movie the director himself gets to the movie theatre through the wall covered with painting of the woods which, together with the name of the movie, reminded me of Hollywood and could indicate that everything we see afterwards is an allegory of it. Of course, I could very well be wrong, but since Carax don't want to talk about the meaning of the movie, all we can do is find our own interpretation of it.
In addition to being parables for the award-winning performances, Oscar's roles are also representations of the various characters every one of us is composed of. When we first see Oscar, he's a wealthy banker arranging a dinner with some colleagues. Later in the movie Oscar sees that character having dinner at the restaurant and leaves the limousine to kill him, showing in that way the repulsion we feel towards some of the characters within us, or, if you want, some segments of our personality. The exploration of our personality is additionally revealed as a theme through one of the songs in the movie, sung by Oscar's colleague and long lost love Jean, with lyrics like: "Who were we, who were we, when we were, who we were, back then?". That segment also explores the possibility of love between fragmented people as we have become.
All of that we could say makes the theme of "Holy Motors", but what about how it is presented? It's a series of bizarre looking unconnected vignettes which create very little emotional impact. The acting is great, especially by Denis Lavant who plays Oscar and through him ten more roles, doing all of that impeccably, as well as Kylie Minogue whose performance probably amazed me so much because I had low expectations, but nevertheless makes one of the highlights of the movie. The cinematography by Caroline Champetier and interesting choice of music help keep the audience interested, but they're not without flaws. The main problem is the author himself. He publicly said that he didn't write screenplay because he doesn't know how to write. And that shows. The movie misses any kind of coherency and often feels unnecessary eccentric. I can't help thinking, maybe with a good screenplay the movie could be more than the sum of his parts, just like it should.
So to turn back to the question from the beginning. I still don't know what's more important, but it seems that having an interesting theme isn't enough, for it can very easily be turned into uninvolving mess. Just like in "Holy Motors", a movie which is better to talk about than to watch.

Tokyo!

Before I saw Tokyo! I had heard that the three short films that make it up had nothing in common other than the common location of Tokyo but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they complement each other quite well. Each film is about a character who is unable to adapt to the society of which he or she is a part and the alienation which results. Each film also has elements that are surreal or at least unreal. Further, each protagonist in the films uses a different coping mechanism to deal with his/her surroundings; the film illustrates the effects of these mechanisms.

Part 1: Interior Design (Michel Gondry) This film is about a young couple who moves to Tokyo so the man can pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker. At the beginning of the film Hiroko (the girl) is happy with her own abilities: she's somewhat artistically inclined but she has no desire to art a career. Her boyfriend criticizes her lack of ambition and she is shaken out of her complacency. To prove that she is of some use to him, Hiroko decides to apply for a retail job. Unfortunately, she goes too far in attempting to prove her worth and tries something she isn't capable of and her boyfriend ends up getting the job he didn't even really want or need. So Hiroko's in a new city with a boyfriend who is too busy working on his film and his retail job to spend any time with her and to make matters worst she is unable to find an apartment for them. As time goes on the friend she is staying with becomes impatient to be rid of them both, even explaining to another person that Hiroko (and not the boyfriend) is the problem. Gondry does an amazing job of conveying Hiroko's feelings of self doubt and worthlessness; he really builds a lot of sympathy for her in a short amount of time. Eventually, Hiroko's feelings are literalized in a surrealistic fashion as she is transformed into a piece of furniture. Her coping mechanism is becoming something less than she could be and it works to a certain extent but it also means giving up everything she ever cared about and a good part of her humanity.

Part 2: Merde (Leos Carax) This film opens with the deformed sewer dweller who comes to be called Merde crawling out of a manhole and terrorizing pedestrians on a busy Tokyo street. His hatred for mankind plays itself out humorously in this early scene: he steals things like cigarettes, crutches, and flowers from these people and introduces an element of chaos into their lives before disappearing in yet another manhole. Later on he finds some kind of abandoned subterranean military station and discovers that there is a box of live grenades there. When he next emerges it's night time and he isn't so funny anymore: he kills dozens of innocent people with these explosives. Eventually he is tried for this and he reveals his hatred for mankind in general and the Japanese specifically. He further explains that his god has ordered him to punish them for raping his mother. Merde's coping mechanism is hatred for the society he can't find a place in and his subsequent violence guarantees that he never will find a place there. This film is the least effective of the three because Merde comes across as too bizarre and unknowable to inspire sympathy and of course his actions are the most reprehensible.

Part 3: Shaking Tokyo (Joon-ho Bong) Joon-ho Bong's contribution to this cinematic triptych is the story of a hikikomori, a uniquely Japanese type of hermit. This particular man hasn't left his house in ten or eleven years. He seems perfectly content to make art of the paper products (books, pizza boxes, toilet paper rolls) he uses: he explains that he doesn't like interacting with other people or sunlight. The former is clearly exhibited by his practice of never looking at the faces of the countless delivery people who make his lifestyle possible and the latter is made clear through the dilapidated exterior which creates a sharp counterpoint to his home's fastidious interior. One day after ten years he looks into the eyes of the pizza girl and the ground literally begins to shake: this literalization of a saying is repeated several times in the film as he eventually finds the courage to leave his apartment to see the girl again. The Tokyo of this film is the most surreal of the three, the streets are completely deserted and it seems that most people are just as alienated as our protagonist, at least until another earthquake drives them out. Bong's direction is excellent in this one as there is some really great camera work and an outstanding use of visual repetition in the beginning as well as long takes and jumpcuts near the end. This protagonist's coping mechanism is shutting himself off from the world; apparently it's the most effective of the three as his decade of hibernation ends with him emerging from his cocoon and seeking out a new relationship.

The film as a whole is stronger than the sum of its parts and the theme of alienation is made all the stronger by the fact that each of these filmmakers approaches Tokyo with the outsider perspective of a foreigner.