The Million Dollar Hotel

I avoided this film, because of the bad criticism it got in the newspapers. But then I decided to see it at a low price cinema. And I thought, it wasn't all that bad as the critics said. I admit that one has to be in the right mood for this film, and I might alter my judgment, if I saw it a second time. But this time, I enjoyed the way it showed me how colorful life can be, even if it is a difficult and not generally admired one. Each well played character has a different story to tell, and one has to think a little about them. In the end, I took a lot of positive thoughts home. But you have to let yourself go, otherwise you will be disappointed.

It's always difficult to know what to expect with Wenders: it's either great or really bad. And the interesting part of it is, it's the very same kind of features and the way he chooses to tell a story that will keep you interested or bore you. Although not exactly a boring film, the Million Dollar Hotel gets caught in its maker's defects. The problem starts with the story. Written by rock-star Bono, the story is something like a rock ballad trying to be a movie. Worse, it tries to be a sort of "alternative moral" tale. This tender love-story between two marginals in a hotel full of sympathetic lunatics is so full of rock cliches, it ends up being a huge cliche in itself.

You watch it, you want to like the plot but oh, again that thing about the weirdos being better people because they are so much more poetic and "innocent" than normal people. You want to like the characters but oh, again we're supposed to fall for a delicate, innocent child-saint-whore woman. You want to like the performance of the actors but after a while, can't help thinking "people, let's get on with it, shall we?". You even want to make the effort of agreeing with that lovely universal message in the end : life can be so beautiful, pity we realise it too late but oh, haven't you read that somewhere already? Chinese cookie, was it??...

The Million Dollar Hotel tries so hard to be deep, it ends up being shallow. It tries so hard to be rich in thoughts, it ends up being cheap and pompous. It tries so hard to criticise "mainstream values" and self-righteousness, it ends up being mainstream and self-righteous. And you try so hard to like it... you really do... that you end up thinking : oooh pleeaaaase!

Behind a kind of bad love story , really common ,there are some feelings , some behaviours you can't forget after having seen this movie , it looks as if everyone was fool , but, you manage minute after minute to understand them , and think like them ...don't watch it, as a ridiculous appearing love story ...

For those of you who are big Mel Gibson fans. This is not your movie. This is for Wim Wenders and U2 fans. This is an art film, though it is made accessible by the performances of Davies, Jovovich and Gibson. It is a very simple, character driven film with a host of great actors. (It is nice to see that Bud Cort is doing something interesting.) The best films usually take a simple story and do it very well. Such are the films of Kubrik and Kurosawa, two of the greatest film-makers of all time (if you don't agree there is a good chance you wont like this film). This film (as opposed to just "movie") has a very simple story, but it does it beautifully. I recommend it to any film lover.

PS: If you like this one check out "Dersu Uzala" by Kurosawa and "Purple Noon" (trans.) by Clement.

Million Dollar Hotel is a beautiful movie, and one of Wenders' best recent efforts, considerably better than The End of Violence or Lisbon Story, but with a smaller worldview than Until the End of the World or Wings of Desire. The State of Things is also one of my favorite Wenders.

I can understand how many people might not like this movie. It's a young person's story about suicide and first love at the very moment when you know it's the best moment in your life as it ever will be, before you get jaded and caught up with the familiar chase after sex, money and power, when your sensations become dulled and your body not as agile because now you're older. It is concerned with poetically defective mentalities and has a drug-like sensibility to it, so you may not get it if you're a normal social conformist with a happy childhood. But then, I had this kind of youth, too, living in drug-addled international student hostel dives around Greenwich Village in the Eighties, purposefully unemployed because it seemed more open to possibility and potentiality than the unphilosophic nine to five. Suicide can really be a statement of momentary happiness rather than the mundane postmortem understanding of a troubled youth, the movie seems to say.

Jeremy Davies gives a fantastic, inspired performance, reminding me a bit of Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but much more nuanced as to require second viewings, or Johnny Depp in Benny and Joon. Admittedly, the story is not completely credible, because while the Million Dollar Hotel seems real enough (think Chelsea Hotel if it were in downtown LA), how all these misfitting characters can survive financially and end up living together in this amazing place cannot be scrupulously pondered. At the same time, it's good that Bono helped write the story, because Wenders' plots tend to be otherwise somewhat inchoate. So in the end, it's an atmospheric fantasy. (Why do so many movies of the late Nineties-early Thousands have people jumping off of roofs? : Open Your Eyes) Nor is all the acting uniform, although Davies especially, Jovavich and notably Stormare stand out. Although Gibson is focused big on the center of the video box, it's really not his movie, as he's just along for the chance to ride with Wenders. The dialogue mixed in with the Beatles lyrics is quite clever. The camera effects for those moments where Tom-Tom and Eloise seem to move in slow motion for several parts of a second are neat, as if the two of them are not completely in the same dimension of our reality and are in danger of somehow being shaken loose from this world. I can't believe this movie was never widely released, as I just found it on the shelf in the video store, don't know how I ever missed it, and I agree that it is destined to be a Wenders cult favorite.