Hotel Coolgardie

It is an absolute must watch!

As a female Australian who has worked as a bar maid and also grown up exposed to country towns (or just those 'typical' all Australian communities, because it's not just rural areas men/women/employers have this mindset which sadly is representing Australia so poorly) i can confirm this is a very accurate portrayal. Well Done!

Warning: Prepare yourself to go through all the emotions like I did when i watched it. This film really brought to light so many things that are wrong in our culture, many of which are so desperately needing to be exposed off and talked about.

I look forward to seeing more documentary's like this one, one highlighting the gambling culture here would be something id love to see from these same film makers if possible.

Incredible documentary. Extremely interesting slice of life from a very different culture. The filmmakers were incredibly good at staying out of the way of the film, and portraying the gritty culture of the location. I didn't expect such realistic, brutally honest interactions, and I absolutely wish more docs were like this one!

The 2 Finnish women at the center of the film were resilient, sweet, and remarkably strong. Most of the bar patrons, on the other hand, were pretty damn awful. I wouldn't think most people from areas such as these are like this. But the when a bar owner is a horrible as this guy was, the atmosphere of that establishment tends to follow suit. At times this documentary is heart-wrenching, and at others it is truly frightening.

Hotel Coolgardie which is directed, shot and edited by Pete Gleeson is a fish out of water tale which shines a light on the attitudes of Australian men albeit in the Australian outback. Two young Finnish girls try their luck when they take a job working as barmaids at a pub called Hotel Denver City, in a remote mining town named Coolgardie, in the Australian outback. Although they are forewarned by the female recruiting agent in Perth that they are going to a somewhat isolated mining town and will be dealing with a lot of male attention, Lina and Stephanie take the job regardless, out of economic necessity.

Like clockwork, every quarter a new batch of girls arrive to work the bar at Hotel Denver City. Lina and Stephanie are replacing Becky and Clio who are wrapping up their three month contract. Interviews with the male regulars of Hotel Denver City reveal that they view the girls as the only game in town, and their is a race to bed them. Their employer, Pete, announces their pending arrival, on the sandwich board outside the bar with the words, "New Girls Tonite". The film documents Lina and Stephanie's attempts to see through their contract and hold it together while they fend off the unrelenting male attention. Gleeson creates intimate portraits of these two young women struggling to maintain their dignity in a sexually charged atmosphere. You not only feel their discomfort and alienation but are worried about their mental health. They are subjected to rude and insulting language and behaviour not just from the blokes but from their boss, Pete, who does nothing to stop it but adds insult to injury by belittling them in public. I was thankful for the presence of John, aka "The Canman", one of the few nice male characters in the film, who presents a different male perspective. I was touched by John's story and his benevolence and friendship with Lina and Stephanie. The dramatic tension in the film doesn't let up and if you want to find out what happens to Lina and Stephanie, well, you've got to see the documentary.

I found Hotel Coolgardie a fascinating documentary. Gleeson has done an excellent job editing his film as it moves fluidly between Lina and Stephanie allowing for two different perspectives, and by interspersing the entire film with day and night shots of Coolgardie and the Australian outback which situates their story in a cultural context. The film not only shines a light on shared attitudes prevalent among Australian men albeit in the Australian outback, but, is a metaphor for the outsider, the migrant, who far away from home, most often alone, must learn an unfamiliar language and navigate and adapt to new cultural contexts to eke out a precarious economic living.

Hotel Coolgardie is an engaging, human tale that follows two Finnish travelers in the Australian outback. Following the theift of their credit cards they are forced to find work in a small mining town east of Perth where lodging is provided. In this isolated and harsh environment, Lina and Steph encounter continunous drunken, chauvinistic behaviour from the patrons (and bar manager for that matter), behaviour the two outgoing barmaids seemed to imbrace. To Lina and Steph's credit they handle their work under these horrible conditions with grace and even form bonds with some of the locals, Lina in particular.

While the sexism on display is predictable and uncomfortable to watch, there's also a loneliness and sadness to the locals portrayed. Some of the drunken interactions are amusingly cringeworthy, with their macho behaviour exposed to be very fragile at times. I almost felt a degree of sympathy for them.

This was a moving, well paced documentary where I felt genuine care for the two travellers. I would thoughorly recommend. 8.5/10

It's safe to say that Hotel Coolgardie won't be being used by Tourism Australian anytime soon to help drive backpackers and tourists to our undeniable beautiful, yet sometimes harsh and almost medieval like landscape filled with both the very best and some of the very poorest of human behaviours.

Like an updated real-life version of Ted Kotcheff's 1971 Australian based cult-classic Wake in Fright, Pete Gleeson's documentary, that follows a few months in the lives of Finnish backpackers Lina and Stephie as they try to earn money and experience Australia as barmaids in the small Western Australian mining centric town of Coolgardie is a raw, insightful and painstakingly honest portrayal of the oft-unspoken drinking culture at the heart of many Australian communities and the casual sexism, racism and arrogance that comes along with it.

For those that view the Australian culture through rose-tinted glasses, Hotel Coolgardie will be a real shock to the system.

Gleeson's camera never flinches as Lina and Stephie experience a range of confronting and often hard to watch scenes. From drunk patrons talking to them about deeply personal and utterly wrong ruminations of why they can't find the right woman, through to abusive and highly offensive comments made to them by their employer, Hotel Coolgardie shows things how it is making it an effective and in many ways important showcase for the underbelly of our great yet sometimes sadly disappointing country and those that call themselves true Australians.

It's not all doom and gloom here however as Gleeson's documentary still shines a light on much of the good that makes Australia such a desired destination.

From the friendly patron of the girls pub known as the Canman though to Stephie friendship with a kind-hearted yet troubled local, Hotel Coolgardie reminds us all that underneath some of the rough and tough exterior lies some genuine care, affection and spirit that is sometimes sadly squashed by a harsh exterior, built up over time to combat the very nature of a town and its citizens of a community such as Coolgardie.

Final Say -

While the film would've benefited greatly from Lina and Stephie being more purely likeable central figures and for us to know more about their situations and road to this point in their lives, Hotel Coolgardie is an often fascinating look into a taboo subject matter and an under-examined aspect of core Australian traditions and lifestyle.

3 ½ camping trips out of 5