While I was at Fantastic Fest last week, “Holy Motors” screened five or six times, and they kept adding screenings later in the schedule. It was wildly impressive to see how many people fell in love with the film. It’s not an easy movie. It’s not a movie that will ever play on 3000 screens at one time. But it’s a gorgeous movie, a big beautiful drunken dream of a movie, and I love that people are responding to it.
The movie’s going to be opening in the US soon, in limited release, and when the film’s publicists asked if I wanted to be the first one to present the poster to you, I jumped. Selling a movie like “Holy Motors” is a real test, because it doesn’t offer anything like a conventional plot, and it’s not particularly star-heavy. Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue both appear in it, and Minogue is great in it. The film belongs to Dennis Levant and Edith Scob, and it’s the most amazing duet of the year, a dance between these two great actors. Scob is part of France’s film history, and I can’t think of a better way to wrap up an iconic career of performances than in a film about the power of icons and performance.
I said earlier this year that it would make a perfect double-feature with “Cloud Atlas,” and sure enough, seeing them within a day of each other at Fantastic Fest affirms them as some of my favorite films of the year so far, and I’m excited to see what happens when audiences finally get their shot at enjoying them.
So without further ado, here’s the one-sheet, which makes perfect sense to debut here on Motion/Captured:
If the film does play near you, I urge you to see it on the biggest screen you can find. It’s a theatrical experience, a movie that should be shared, one I’ll definitely see at least once more in a theater this year.
“Holy Motors” will also play at the NYFF on October 11, so if you live in New York, you’ve got a shot at seeing it sooner than everyone else.