The unease of the car scene in Holy Motors
So, if I’m being completely honest, I have no clue about the reality of this scene. I am unsure if this scene shows Oscar’s genuine homelife, or if it is just another act being put on by holy motors. I mean, if I’m being fully honest, I’m not sure if any scene of this is a depiction of honest reality, as it seems everyone down to the cars is putting on an act. Regardless, this scene does an expert job of making the viewer uncomfortable. Let’s look at how this scene begins, opening with a hold of a medium-close shot of a more genuine and shabby-looking version of Oscar driving in his own car instead of the limo.
This opening already made me uncomfortable for a few reasons. At this point, I thought Oscar was just some crazy rich guy aided by his fancy and extravagantly stocked limo. So, Seeing Oscar looking shabby in a regular-looking car contrasted heavily with what we have seen so far, making me unnerved and asking who this guy was. Furthermore, in the previous sequence, we saw Oscar dressing up as a decrepit-looking, gremlin-looking guy, running through and desecrating a cemetery, eating somebody’s fingers, and capturing and redressing a model. So, based on previous motifs I’ve seen in films, when there is a hold on the face of a character who is unwell, I begin to anticipate there will be some emotional explosion.
Once the car stops, the mise en scene continues to add to the uncomfortability of the scene.
The film cuts to an utterly lifeless apartment beside the balcony where the party is being held.
The film cuts to an utterly lifeless apartment beside the balcony where the party is being held.
Following that, Oscar’s daughter gets in the car, and Oscar starts to ask her about her time at the party. Having your parent pick you up from a party or somewhere where you maybe don’t want to tell them all the details is pretty universal teenage experience. Add this with Oscar’s overzealous interrogation, reminding me of my overzealous European father, added to the secondhand embarrassment I felt for Angelé.
However, the scene fully commits to unease after Angelé tells Oscar that she hid in the bathroom for the whole party and lied to him about it. Instead of being a kind and supportive father, he scolds her, calling her a coward and saying she has no pride. Combining this un-father-like sentiment with our own knowledge or at least perceived understanding of Oscar’s instability makes the viewer uneasy and fearful of what Oscar might do. Oscar keeps repeating that Angelé “will be punished” but never explains what that punishment is before finally ending the scene with the last thing you expect a father to say, that her punishment is living as herself. Nothing in this ladder half of this conversation makes sense for a mentally stable father to say. So all of this, plus the menace that Oscar has already been shown to be, profoundly unnerves the viewer.
Regardless of whether this scene was an act or not, Carax’s construction of this scene, just like many other moments in the film, does an expert job of unnerving the viewer and making them wonder what the fuck is going on.
Hi Jasper,
I really enjoyed your in-depth analysis of this scene and agree with many of the points you made. I also felt very uneasy during this scene, but for a different reasons than you did. As with the rest of the film, there are many questions that arise with each scene. Therefore, I was uncomfortable because I didn’t know if Angelé (if that’s even her real name) knew that Oscar wasn’t her real father. Has she been living her whole life believing that this actor was her real dad? On the other hand, Angelé could also be an actress who is playing the role of Oscar’s “daughter”. When asked about his day, he mentioned that he had been busy with a lot of appointments. This hints that Angelé might also be an actress, since she nodded and seemed to understand why these appointments would tire him out. Additionally, we see later in the film that Oscar has several other familial “relationships” with actors. During the scene with his “niece”, for example, what her real name was, hinting that there is a whole network of actors in his city.
Lastly, I was also intrigued by Oscar’s statement that Angelé will be punished by having to live as herself. Throughout the whole scene, he was hinting at a major punishment for lying to him and hiding in the bathroom. Since he is an actor, however, he wouldn’t really be able to carry out an actual punishment once his appointment with her is over. As a result, I wonder if he had to give her a “punishment” that would seem “fatherly”, but without any direct involvement from him. Additionally, this world is full of actors who are pretending to be different characters all day. It is also possible that “living as yourself” in this society, rather than the characters in your appointments, is actually seen as a real punishment. Therefore, this quote could actually have a double-meaning.
Hi Jasper,
While Oscar’s conversation with his daughter in the car was creepy and uncomfortable, it felt in tune with much of his acts within the film. As he traverses across Paris during his appointments, he personifies a range of interesting characters, all which require him to “perform.” Thus, this constant act that he puts on leads me to question if being with his daughter is just another appointment or if there is some level of real care on his part. While Oscar bites hands off, kills people, and does extreme physical damage during his appointments, his time in the car seems to exhibit the most pain; indeed, the emotional suffering that he puts his daughter through challenges if Oscar truly cares for anyone if he can’t even have some empathy for his antisocial daughter. While he shows affection for many of the random women he encounters during his appointments, even showing care for a monkey at the end of the movie, his supposed real daughter is the only one close to him that he emotionally hurts, questioning how good of a person he is. If Carax’s goal was to unnerve and disturb the viewer, this scene did far more than the gore and the violence because it felt the most realistic, and added onto the film’s themes of unpredictability and disappointment.