#holy motors
HOLY MOTORS (US)
Director: Leos Carax
Writer: Leos Carax
Stars: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob and Eva Mendes
Synopsis:
From dawn to after nightfall, a few hours in the life of Monsieur Oscar, a shadowy character who journeys from one life to the next. He is, in turn, captain of industry, assassin, beggar, monster, family man. He seems to be playing roles, plunging headlong into each part… but where are the cameras? Monsieur Oscar is alone, accompanied only by Céline, the slender blonde woman behind the wheel of the vast engine that transports him in and around Paris. He’s like a conscientious assassin moving from hit to hit. In pursuit of the purely beautiful act, the mysterious driving force, the women and ghosts of past lives. But where is his true home, his family, his rest?
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“Don’t people always feel better just before the end? Nothing makes us feel so alive as to see others die. That’s the sensation of life, the feeling that we remain.“
- Denis Lavant as The Dying in Holy Motors (2012)
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1.Amour (Michael Haneke)
This masterful ode to death and dying is every bit as uncomfortable and unflinching as Michael Haneke’s sombre reputation suggests, but by adding a new found warmth to his repertoire, Amour is a film made remarkable in its simultaneously brutal and tender depiction of humanity.
2. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest opus offers, among other things, an intensive study of men who lead and men looking to be led in post-war America. This cerebral approach to character makes for fascinating cinema, and although its mysteries may ultimately evade, The Master is as breathless a film as one would expect from America’s greatest showman.
3.Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham)
Building on the already solid foundations of mumblecore with the wit of Woody Allen, Lena Dunham’s painfully frank film about life after graduation is a thoroughly modern and disturbingly relatable examination of alienated youth and wasted talent.
4.Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard)
Jacques Audiard’s exquisite take on melodrama observes the blossoming relationship between a security guard and a whale trainer in the wake of a career-ending tragedy, but instead of descending into mawkishness, Audiard’s well judged restraint grounds the film in some kind of reality, allowing the central romance to develop in an organic, unsentimental way.
5.The Innkeepers (Ti West)
By combining the twin terrors of ghost stories and existential crises, Ti West has found the perfect home for the thematic concerns of the mumblecore movement with a film that not only functions as A grade horror, but also as a terrifying parable for the modern youth.
6.Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos)
The Hitchcockian idea of using doppelgangers to help appease grief is an inherently sick one, and Lanthimos’ steady, distant observations of how the frailties of such a process begin to surface are, while elusive, as morbidly fascinating as they are troubling.
7. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
With its long, glacial takes, stunning photography and startlingly calm approach to narrative and character, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia offers an unusually lyrical, thematically rich take on the police procedural sub-genre.
8.Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan)
The epitome of a hot mess, Xavier Dolan’s vivid dissection of transsexuality, romance and heartbreak is a gorgeously presented, decade spanning emotional epic reminiscent of the work of Pedro Almodovar, and although it lacks control, its bombastic style is more than enough to sustain its ambition.
9.Sightseers (Ben Wheatley)
Taking cues from Badlands and the films of Mike Leigh, Ben Wheatley’s third film in as many years is an unabashedly violent, romantic and hilarious romp through the English countryside, blending horror and comedy to wonderful, if wholly British effect.
10.Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
Leos Carax’s brazenly opaque oddity almost didn’t make this list, with its absurd, often hideous images serving to baffle rather than engage. But, for better or for worse, Holy Motors has stayed with me more than any other film this year, and that surely has to mean something.
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NOTE:This list is based on UK release dates.
Tasked with providing the costumes for one of the most bizarre and eccentric pieces of cinema we have ever seen - Anaïs Romand has contributed to the unique and fantastical splendour of Leos Carax’s ‘Holy Motors’. Following the mysterious, Monsieur Oscar on a limousine odyssey across Paris as he transforms from businessman-to-beggar woman-to-dying man…and everything else in between. The costume played as big a role as any in constructing the multiple characters that actor, Denis Lavant had to encompass. Anaïs talks me through the thought process behind such an exceptional project.
HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED WITH HOLY MOTORS?
Albert Prévost a producer and close friend to Leos introduced me to him. Albert died of cancer just one month before Cannes, he had seen the film almost ready and was very proud of it. I had worked with Albert before and knew that working with little money didn’t mean little artistic ambition, and because we trusted each other we could always find some solutions and give Leos what he wanted.
WHAT WERE YOUR INITIAL THOUGHTS WHEN YOU READ THE SCRIPT?
It was fascinating to follow this actor through all his disguises, and many images were coming as I was reading, my first thoughts were that it was going to be a real challenge to make all the characters performed by Denis Lavant and knowing Leos Carax is such a perfectionist!
HOW DID YOUR IDEAS DEVELOP?
Talking a lot with Leos, because the script was very factual I had to understand the atmosphere and intention in each scene so it was a slow construction.
HOW MUCH OF A COLLABORATIVE PROCESS WAS IT?
All the crew prepared the film in the same place in Paris, Leos was there all day, every day, except when he had to go on locations. We could all communicate with Leos any time, meet and talk about the image, the cast, the locations, and the costumes. This film was prepared - and shot - with a very good spirit, we have always tried to find the solutions in a very collaborative process. Leos was present at all the fittings, looking at every detail, developing his ideas during the fittings.
WHY DO YOU THINK COSTUME IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF FILM, AND HOLY MOTORS IN PARTICULAR?
Well I think costume is always an important part of film, maybe on Holy Motors as there is no “story”, the visual part tells a lot and is as important as the text, the sound, the rhythm, so everything that was filmed had to fit precisely in the picture. But this is the language of cinema isn’t it?
THE COSTUMES OF OSCAR CHANGE THROUGHOUT - WHICH OF HIS CHARACTERS WAS THE MOST FUN TO WORK ON?
The business man, usually to dress an actor as a business man isn’t so much fun, but with Denis Lavant it was an incredible transformation; he is very thin, I made a false body to make him look heavier, the fittings were fun. But all the characters were fun to make.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU FROM DESIGNING TO THE FINISHED PRODUCT?
3 months.
WHEN DID YOU REALISE THAT YOU WANTED TO BECOME A COSTUME DESIGNER OVER ANYTHING ELSE?
After watching a few movies…now I’m addicted.
HOW HAS YOUR SKILL DEVELOPED OVER YOUR CAREER?
Always being curious.
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?
I don’t think I’ve achieved anything, I’m looking ahead and dreaming of the costumes of the next films.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NEXT?
A film directed by Bertrand Bonello, whom I had work with for l'Apollonide (House of Tolerance) about Yves Saint Laurent.
WHO IS YOUR IDOL?
For costume design: Piero Tosi
Holy Motors
Interview: Emma Hurwitz
Images courtesy of Artificial Eye
