92% Holy Motors

All Critics (108) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (99) | Rotten (9)

This is the kind of it-can-mean-whatever-you-want-it-to-mean art film that I usually run from, but Carax is such a prodigiously gifted mesmerist that, if you give way, you're likely to be enfolded in the film's phantasmagoria.

Holy Motors is wild and unfettered and playful - the work of an artist who carries his love of cinema in his bones, and knows how to share that affection with the audience.

This is the most exhilarating cinema ride of 2012, a marvellously mobile mystery trip.

In "Holy Motors" Carax insists on our other selves. His daylong ride is a wary celebration, a joyful dirge that's served up in concentrated form by a roving band of accordion players. It's all in a day's work.

As cryptic and unpredictable as that premise might suggest.

Lavant is splendid in the film, and he's essentially the entire film - and yet, "Holy Motors" is somewhat more than a contraption built for a fearless performer.

Despite the millions of dollars fueling 2012's special-effects extravaganzas, I doubt I'll experience anything as exhilarating or memorable this year.

If Carax's sorcery doesn't immediately encourage interest in Oscar's fantasyland invasion, trigger the eject button on your seat. Holy Motors is not the type of cinema that should be endured.

All this random action, Carax suggests, is for some vast, abstract audience anxious to lose itself in imagined narratives.

Holy Motors is gloriously alive with experimentation and the centrality of human involvement regardless of what form the end product of their efforts takes.

Weird, baffling, and the lunatic work of a powerfully ambitious filmmaker, 'Holy Motors' is one of the best films of the year.

Andr? Breton would be proud.

I just know Holy Motors tickled me, cosmic pretensions and all.

Some day, an editor is going to put together a highlight reel of Denis Lavant's greatest performances. Will most of it be scenes from Holy Motors?

It's rare that we get the chance to encounter anything this freely inventive, this amusing, this ineffably sad and, yet, this full of life.

A fascinating and heartbreaking study of humanity, one leavened with a refreshing levity and humor that makes Carax's philosophy on life not only palatable, but thoroughly enjoyable.

A stunning exploration of identity in both society and filmmaking that features one of the best performances of the year by some stretch.

A film that not only demands repeat viewings but also makes that an attractive proposition.

A multitude of pleasures abound if one gives into the insane spell the film casts.

An exercise in overindulgence.

A glorious, gross, absurd, haunting dream and deconstruction of identity that may enthrall like a symphony or annoy like a rash.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/holy_motors/

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