Deux cents motels

This is not a movie to see in a normal human state of mind. Zappa didn't do drugs, so if you can achieve a state of Zappa-Zen you might really get off on this film. Because of, or in spite of, my being on nothing, it's had the weirdest effect on me. I can hardly remember anything about it. I saw it in '74. I saw it again just recently. But there's nothing I can tell you. It's like a dream, disjointed and bizarre. A dream you know you had but can't remember. No other movie has ever done that to me. Is that good or bad?

After years of trying, I recently began to enjoy The Mother's of Invention and Frank Zappa, so I figured it was time to give 200 Motels another shot. Once before I had tried watching it and couldn't finish it. It happened again. The tendency seems to be to say this is a good film and you just don't understand it, if you're a Zappa fan. Still, I don't think it's a very good film. It looks like it was edited by ten year olds. It gave me a headache to watch the first music scene. A little too smart for me, I suppose.

To many people, musician Frank Zappa's counterculture rants were dangerous, to some sexually charged and stimulating, and still to others tired and boring. Somehow, he managed to cut a deal with United Artists and filmed what emerged as a free-form musical diatribe on drugs, sex, the gap between generations (musicians vs. the common businessman) and post-psychedelic expression. With MTV some 10 years off, this was the only way Zappa and his Mothers (of Invention) could bring their ideas together; but, unfortunately, it's too messy to involve anyone beyond Zappa's core audience. Ringo Starr, in Frank Zappa garb, has some curious speeches that attempt to clarify Zappa's concepts of society, and some of the rock music is indeed exciting, but Mr. Z. is far too defensive to be much fun. Surely some of these directionless scenes are meant to be satiric, but his sense of humor is always undermined by a draggy, self-serious need to "teach us something". A post-"Laugh-In" series of sketches, "200 Motels" might've been personally felt out, but it fails to grab us because, technically, the movie looks terrible. Grungy with druggy influences, it simply doesn't take shape. Besides, Bob Rafelson and the Monkees did this kind of thing first (and more slickly, to involve a wider audience) with "Head" in 1968. *1/2 from ****

It is a long time since I saw this film, so am really going off memory - however I am certain that if I say this is one of the most off-the-wall movies ever made, few who have seen it would disagree!

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were an excellent bunch of musicians who had evolved into a bit of send-up on the side by the time '200 Motels' was released. This means it falls rather heavily between being a rock musical or a comedy tour film a la Spinal Tap. Ringo Starr appears as Larry the Dwarf. Keith Moon appears as a nun (now, that's scary!); while, for reasons unknown, Theodore Bikel is there throughout as the spaced out Dave (Bikel was in 'My Fair Lady' as the star pupil amongst other mainstream features).

In good company amongst features such as 'Head' (The Monkees) and 'Born to Boogie' (T-Rex) I suppose '200 Motels' is very much of its time but looks silly and dated all these years on.

If you don't know Frank Zappa, you won't like this movie. It's full of in-jokes, references to previous material and basic on-camera weirdness that can only be understood in context. Of course, it also works in reverse: if you enjoy Frank Zappa, like I do, you'll love to see this Zappa masterpiece. Zappa references this movie in loads of albums (Playground Psychotics, Best band you never heard in Your Life), and finally getting to see the much talked about magnum opus culminates the Zappa experience. The in-jokes make sense when you look at the rest of the Zappa past, and so does the premise of "a look at life on the road".

The context aside, the movie is just weird. It's not really "life on the road", it's random scenes of Keith Moon as a nun, a man falling in love with a vacuum cleaner and the band scheming against its leader. There's no real plotline, and Zappa isn't even played by himself for half the film (he's played by Ringo Starr). Honestly, it's not that good. Unless you're a fan of the Zappa mystique, it won't make much sense. Even the dynamite soundtrack is lost due to bad sound quality.