A movie that is like no other: Holy Motors

Some people will hate this movie and for them I say OK, stop watching after ten minutes because what you see is what you get, but I found Leo Carax's Holy Motors (2012) a tremendously interesting, complex, confusing, weird, visually dramatic, sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing movie - not sure if at the end it really means anything and not sure if all the pieces hold together or if some are just random - you can get away with a lot of narrative shenanigans if you're building your whole edifice on dream-logic - but the best way to watch this is to just observe and absorb and not worry terribly about whether everything makes sense. What we see is a main character, Oscar (reference to movie-making?) played by French actor Denis Lavant, over the course of what appears to be 24 hours playing about 12 different roles: the structure seems to be: he wakes up in a motel room in a city, lights up, wanders around, breaks through a wall, finds himself in a theater, observing the audience; then, flash, he seems to be a business executive with bodyguards, leaving his modernist-style (Corbusier) mansion (saying good-bye to children) entering limo and heading off toward work; limo driver, Celine, tells him he has 9 "assignments" for the day - we gradually realize that each assignment requires him to undergo a costume/makeup change (in back of limo) and then play some kind of role: so he is an avatar for the movie actor, with many different assignments and roles and realities - in that sense, he is playing himself, an actor who actually must take on each of these assignments. The assignments are sometimes very much within a movie genre - e.g., an assassination, a dad in a dramatic scenes with teen daughter driving her home from a party, a derathbed scene - other times the assignments are just plain weird. Many take him to odd, deserted places in Paris, notably the cemetery (Pere Lachaise?), the sewer system, a deserted former department store (Samarataine) - at least one of which may be a "real" moment in his life rather than an "assignment" (though again with the double-entendre that the entire movie is Lavant's "assignment"). Some of the explorations of staged scenes in after-hours public spaces reminded me of The Russian Ark - a sense of voyeurism and of a secret ongoing life in a great city. The title reference, which we learn more about in the last segment, suggest an allegorical dimension as well, as the limo is like vehicle carrying him through the course not just of a day but of his life, heading for salvation, or not. Some scenes are so disturbing - and I do not mean gruesome of ghastly, but visually and emotionally, like moments from Poe - that they will stay with you indelibly. It's not as controlled and thoughtful as other emotionally stunning movies such as Pan's Labyrinth of The Secret in their Eyes - but Carax creates a world and vision all his own. Not for everyone, but some may find this one of the best movies of recent years.