So, I found out today that for cinema studies we had screenings each week, and had to write blog posts about them. So many blogs! Anyway, today we watched Holy Motors, I had never heard of this film before, so going into the screening I didn’t know what to expect. At the end of the screening, I didn’t know what to take out… What just happened? This film was so quirky and bizarre, every time I thought I had an idea of what was happening and where the film was going, he would get back in his limo. I have a few ideas about the meaning of this text, but nothing concrete. Was everyone in the film acting? If so, is this a comment on how individuals pretend to be someone who they are not? Was the protagonist, Dennis Lavant, unable to find happiness within, and as a result, hijacked the identity of others to feel welcomed? I remember a scene between Lavant and Elise I think? Where they bring forward the idea that someone is fully happy right before they die. So did Lavants’ character use these identities to find a sense of fulfilment? But I think the best answer I can give to the question, “what is this films purpose?” is it’s an unconventional narrative of life to death. We see this start to develop from the beginning of the film, Lavant is locked in a room, or “womb” if you like, keen to escape. The film then progressively develops and progresses through each stage of life, beginning with the adolescent dance scene in the motion capture suits. Then moving onto a middle aged man worrying about his daughter, afterwards to an elderly man who it seems is about to die. And finally the scene with the apes, this could be expanding on the “womb to tomb” theme by introducing the theory of evolution. I think what perplexes audiences most is that this is an entirely metaphorical film, yet set in reality. So viewers expect it to run through in a conventional format way, then when it doesn’t, people start to wonder. I’m excited for class tomorrow to figure out exactly what is happening in the masterpiece.