Leos Carax, once the daring darling of French Cinema, had not made a film since 1999’s Pola X, so the buzz surrounding Holy Motors at Cannes was practically palpable. The film will confound many, infuriate a few and entrance some. No one can say that Carax has lost his provocative touch.

Holy Motors opens with a sequence about a man (the director himself) who finds a cinema hidden behind the wall of his room. From there the film primarily follows the character of Monsieur Oscar (Carax regular Denis Lavant) who spends his day riding around the city in a stretch limo, morphing into a variety of roles using costume and makeup. These include a beggar woman, an assassin, the leader of a band of rock-accordionists, a motion capture specialist, Kylie Minogue’s lover, and Merde, the goblin-like creature who appeared in Carax’s segment of the short film anthology Tokyo!

DCA cinema-goers who caught Cosmopolis earlier this year will notice some thematic similarities, but Holy Motors is firmly grounded in the realm of surrealism with nods to Cocteau, Buñuel, and Franju. What is it all about? Your guess is as good as ours and as this is a film which will definitely divide audiences, we invite you to make up your own minds. Let the debate begin!