STAFF TRAINING DAY: HOLY MOTORS

At the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, HOLY MOTOR's writer/director Leos Carax swatted away the fourth estate like flies, each of whom essentially made the following simple, yet prying inquiry about his latest feature: "What does it all mean?"

After much ado, Carax reluctantly replied with a solemn, concise phrase that has since captured the minds of those who eagerly anticipate, and especially those who have already seen, the cinematic wonder that is HOLY MOTORS: "This is a film about a man and the experience of being alive."

HOLY MOTORS is the fifth film by French filmmaker Leos Carax, his first in thirteen years (the latest since 1999's POLA X) and it is unlike anything you have seen, heard, or dreamed. The film is difficult to explain without giving away its many pleasures. In many regards, the best way to experience HOLY MOTORS is to buy your ticket, take your seat, and experience it - to take our word for it, to take the word of the critics who awarded it the Critics' Prize at Fantastic Fest 2012, to let yourself experience something altogether cinematically different. The mistake many critics make is to review HOLY MOTORS in linear, descriptive terms. HOLY MOTORS is more like a series of unpredictable impressions, a maze in which the mind of both filmmaker and viewer wanders, not knowing where they will wind up next. It is not very often that a movie comes along that is as captivating, imaginative, and so literally breathtaking as HOLY MOTORS. 

Let us at the Drafthouse invite you on a dreamlike journey into the world(s) of HOLY MOTORS, a trip that spans film genres as much as it is an autiobiography. A trip you will not soon forget. (Sam Prime)