Leos Carax hurts my brain. More specifically Leos Carax’s Holy Motors hurts my brain but I think I kinda like it.

I first viewed Holy Motors after stumbling across some beautiful screenshots of the film on my Tumblr dashboard. The screenshots were beautiful enough to entice me to seek out the film, but I was yet to discover how the narrative or lack of it would also add to the film’s magnificence.

My first viewing of the film was alone in a dark room which in the end lent itself to a lot of post viewing googling, such as “meaning behind Leos Carax Holy Motors” or “plot summary of Holy Motors. After coming up with some unsatisfying summaries that stated “Leos Carax is in love with love” or “a journey from life to death” I decided to stop googling. These reviews didn’t just leave me with a head full of burning questions, they also left me with that dissatisfying feeling of disenchantment. It was a similar feeling to the one you get when you show a musical friend your new favourite band and they tear apart their drumming technique or point out how genre conforming the whole album is.

After viewing the film for a second time (surrounded by people in a dark room) the magic of Leos Carax’s Holy Motors was again evident. Hearing the gasps, hearing the laughter, hearing the uncomfortable shifting and the complete transfixion re-ignited that original enchantment and all those burning questions. If your like me and you like it when you brain hurts, I’d advise that you go see this film, surrounded by people in a dark room and don’t google anything after, just talk. Talk to the people around you, revel in your wonder, revel in your discomfort, revel in your brain hurt. Don’t attempt to google the ‘solution’, just revel in this wonderful film, because it is rare these days to come across a film that can produce wonder, pain, laughter and discomfort on a truly genuine level, so you may as well enjoy it.

Catch you later, Louise Alice Wilson