If anything he regards Holy Motors as a science-fiction movie; a parable of human relationships in the internet age. It all started with those white limousines, which he saw as a neat symbol of the virtual world, in that they are rented by the hour; in that they want to be seen but won’t let you see in; in that they are like living in a bubble. “I suppose I was trying to describe the experience of being alive in the internet world. The different lives we are able to live. The fatigue of being oneself. We all get a little tired of being ourselves sometimes. The answer is to reinvent yourself, but how do you do that and what is the cost? I know that’s true for me. I feel as though I’ve exhausted a few lives already.”

Asked about the public reaction to his film, he said: “I don’t know who the public is, except a bunch of people who will soon be dead.”

Asked if it was an homage to the history of film, he said: “If you decide to live in that island which is cinema, it is a beautiful island, with a very big cemetery … if you feel the film is about cinema, it’s not a conscious process. If you make a film, you make cinema.”

On the title of the film, he said it came from a feeling that there was a “solidarity between the characters, animals and machines … that’s why I called the film Holy Motors. We have incredible motors inside ourselves too”.

Expanding a little on the role of the main character, he said: “The character played by Denis is an actor, but it is not a film about actors, but about a man, a person, and the experience of being alive.”