While a British film crew are shooting a version of The Duchess Of Malfi in Venice, they in turn are being filmed by a sleasy documentary primadonna while the strange staff share meals ...
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Four frames of simultaneous action that alternately follow a smitten lesbian lover as she obsesses over her partner's dalliances and the tense goings-on of a Hollywood film production company.
In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers went on strike. The dispute lasted for over a year and was the most bitterly fought since the general strike of 1926, marking a turning point in ... See full summary »
Director:
Mike Figgis
Stars:
Stephen Cranford,
Jeremy Deller,
Howard Giles
19 filmmakers from ten european countries selected by Mike Figgis for a Masterclass by the European Film Academy come to Slovenia in a challenging mission: to conceive, shoot, complete a ... See full summary »
A crooked American businessman tries to push the shady influential owner of a nightclub in Newcastle, England to sell him the club. The club's new employee and the American's ex lover fall in love and inadvertently stir the pot.
While a British film crew are shooting a version of The Duchess Of Malfi in Venice, they in turn are being filmed by a sleasy documentary primadonna while the strange staff share meals which consist of human meat. Then there is the hit man, the call girl and the Hollywood producer all managing to become part of the madness...Written by
Andrew Main
John Webster's play "The Duchess of Malfi" was first performed in 1614 at the Globe Theatre in London, and first published in 1623. The onscreen credits simply list the title followed by the author's name, and omit the word "play". See more »
I'd only recommend you see this frenetic film if you can get it in DVD, and then only if you watch the bonus disc first. Once you have watched it, you can then decide whether to bother watching the string of joined-up out-takes that claim to be the movie itself. We wished we hadn't bothered. How Mike Figgis ever managed to persuade the acknowledged famous cast members to lend their names to this work I'll never know - he states on the bonus disc that it's "a film without a script", and yes, that's certainly true. To give the cast their due I am amazed that they managed to ad-lib for over an hour and a half. Figgis seems to realise at several times in the film that his paying audience may be falling asleep and inserts gratuitous and seemingly unconnected perverted sex scenes. A moment of temporary relief comes early on when Rhys Ifans' character is shot (why?) and he enters a coma from which he seems able to selectively awake. Up until then the sound level is loud enough to keep even the most soporific viewer awake, but mercifully the coma seems to coincide with a general quietening down.
Ironically I'm almost tempted to watch Figgis's Timecode to see how it compares. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a good surrealist or underground film, but Hotel doesn't even come close. Give it a miss.
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I'd only recommend you see this frenetic film if you can get it in DVD, and then only if you watch the bonus disc first. Once you have watched it, you can then decide whether to bother watching the string of joined-up out-takes that claim to be the movie itself. We wished we hadn't bothered. How Mike Figgis ever managed to persuade the acknowledged famous cast members to lend their names to this work I'll never know - he states on the bonus disc that it's "a film without a script", and yes, that's certainly true. To give the cast their due I am amazed that they managed to ad-lib for over an hour and a half. Figgis seems to realise at several times in the film that his paying audience may be falling asleep and inserts gratuitous and seemingly unconnected perverted sex scenes. A moment of temporary relief comes early on when Rhys Ifans' character is shot (why?) and he enters a coma from which he seems able to selectively awake. Up until then the sound level is loud enough to keep even the most soporific viewer awake, but mercifully the coma seems to coincide with a general quietening down.
Ironically I'm almost tempted to watch Figgis's Timecode to see how it compares. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a good surrealist or underground film, but Hotel doesn't even come close. Give it a miss.