The following is a blog post written for my Introduction to Cinema Studies class, re-published here so all my work is in one place.

Holy Motors is an ideal film to analyse in terms of film form, because its unconventional structure and seemingly disconnected narrative allow us to concentrate on the details of form and structure rather than the story.

Each of the elements of film form as described in the text — pattern, expectation and anticipation, convention (and subversion of convention), similarity and repetition, difference and variation, development, unity and disunity — are dealt with in an interesting and unique way in Holy Motors.

The film uses repetition on a basic, structural level — M. Oscar, the main character, travels from appointment to appointment in a limousine, reinventing himself into a new persona using make-up and prosthetics each time. This repetitive structure forms a basis for understanding the film as a coherent whole even though each individual persona is odd and unexpected.

The first time Oscar adopts another persona, transforming from a middle-aged business man into an elderly woman, it confounds our expectations because, generally, in cinema actors play single character that remains stable through an entire film.

Expectation is an element of film form that Holy Motors exploits to great effect — and, in particular, subverting expectations in ways that are surprising and compelling. We expect that when someone is shot or stabbed in a film that they have died, and won’t be present for the rest of the film, but Oscar is stabbed and shot on several occasions, each time getting up and moving on to his next appointment.

It is then shocking when Kylie Minogue’s character Eva Grace commits suicide by jumping off a building, because by this point in the film we have been conditioned to expect that actors (like Oscar) “die” multiple times a day without ill effect. The film exploits our expectation (which has already been modified once before) to create meaning.

Difference/variation is one of the main techniques used in Holy Motors to dictate experience, even in small ways. The comparison of Oscar’s bright green suit and dirty, unkempt appearance with the sleek earthy tones of the model is striking. Slow, sensual camera movement during the motion capture sequence serves that scene well, but a later scene involving a shooting is shot in a busy, hyper-kinetic style.

I interpreted the film to be a celebration of the cinematic form and its essentially endless possibilities, and the film itself is a wonderful expression of its own meaning.

The Wizard of Oz puts comparatively more emphasis on narrative structure and development than Holy Motors, and comparatively less emphasis on cheating expectations, but each film uses form in a multitude of ways to elicit meaning. Some of these formal elements are shared by both films — for example, the use of clearly defined vignettes to break up the central “journey”, or the use of contrasting colours to place characters in opposition to one another in a scene.

My favourite example of the similarities between The Wizard of Oz and Holy Motors was in the latter film’s “interval”, which is structured like a miniature Wizard of Oz. The main character (Oscar/Dorothy) starts off on a journey alone, but is gradually joined by other supporting characters who travel with the main character and form a band. With the addition of each member the party gets bigger and louder, and the motif is strengthened before the main character ends up where they began to continue their life alone, though having shared an experience with their band.

The number and depth of such formal experimentations in Holy Motors makes it an excellent example of the importance of film form.