Hotel Monterey
Director: Chantal Akerman
Year Released: 1972
Rating: 2.5
Silent, semi-structuralist examination of a decrepit New York hotel, with Akerman's camera ending up in the elevator, in the bathroom, gliding through the corridors and peering out the windows. The lighting is poor and some of the scenes are hard to make out - the overall mission seems to be for Akerman to make an already inhospitable location look even less livable and quaint and to that end: ... mission accomplished, I guess. Akerman's work in the 70's - resurrected by the beloved Criterion group - seems to question the very idea of "what is home?," and though this picture isn't particularly fascinating or illuminating, it does fit in the pattern.
