Hôtel

Irene is the new receptionist in a hotel in the austrian alps. She's not a local and thus is assigned living quarters on-site. She is obedient and pretty, modest and respectful. She likes swimming in the hotel pool, and walking close to the hotel in the foreboding woods.

She is friendly and wants to be a part of her peer group. Her co-workers are either stoic or rude and inconsiderate. Irene is alone and isolated------ and this isolation is the underlying theme of the film.

Irene was hired to replace another young woman, also a boarder, who has gone missing. There is a police investigation underway during Irene's early time at the hotel. We're told that there is a local legend of a Woman of the Woods, a witch who lives in the woods, perhaps inside the ominous cave near the hotel. Are the woods indeed haunted? Is someone stalking Irene?

These factors contribute to the mystery of the film, but do not explain the fate of Irene.

If you view this film as a horror and expect scares or gore, you will be confused and disappointed. The truer description is of a simple mystery involving young, low-paid service workers struggling to make connections in the stark, depressive environment of a mountain hotel.

Irene's emotional health visibly declines as her initial hopefulness about a new job in hospitality fades and becomes lonely and odd. Even the most simple joys she seeks, the friendship of a co-worker, a brief romance, a schedule change to go home, or pool swimming, become disappointments. This is the defining quality of the film, and when viewed as such, the ending makes sense.

This is an interesting, colorful, dark, film with repressed characters and dark hallways. It is relatively easy to watch at 75 minutes. This was a wise decision by the director. The runtime is perfect for the story.

I saw that movie at a film festival in Januray 2005. On my personal record, it was the second best out of the 10 movies I had seen there. The film does polarize very much - either you like it or you hate it. Especially the end is very controversial.

"Hotel" is not a conventional horror movie and it is certainly not meant to be shown at the big block buster cinemas. It is much more a low budget, minimalist, purist version of a scary movie. The film has very subtitle, psychological horror! If you liked "Blair Witch Project", you will enjoy this movie too.

The Austrian accent of the most actors give the soundtrack a special note and make the already very reserved atmosphere between the characters even more chilly.

By the way: No one left the cinema or fell asleep during screening as reported in other comments on this site ... <:

The stuffy provincial atmosphere reminds me of "Requiem" or "Dogville", but the lighting is more like "2046" or "The Matrix". Irene (Franziska Weisz) is the new girl at the movie's eponymous hotel. She isn't the paranoid type, but soon feels slightly claustrophobic nevertheless. In fact, neither Irene nor the camera get to leave the hotel until 20 minutes into the movie. Although her colleagues' disposition ranges from grumpy to openly hostile, she can't be sure she'd be better off outside. We are led to believe the girl Irene is replacing went out and never came back. For there's a witch lurking in the forest. Or something. No matter where Irene goes, there are curtains everywhere to conceal the truth. The fact that there is no music other than from the creaky speaker in the elevator (and Irene's noisy next-door neighbors) adds to the eerie mood. There are obvious overtones of "Lost Highway", especially when Irene discovers she looks almost exactly like the missing girl. Of course, there is no living up to this promise. "Hotel" is probably a little too stylish for its own good, but it's a real pleasure to look at and leaves you feeling agreeably spooked.

The story has potential. The director has not. The movie is praised as a horror movie, but it isn't. I'd like to say something about the story... but I'm sorry, there is no story. There is no suspense. There is one very well actress, but it's not the leading role. It's Frau Maschek alias Marlene Streeruwitz who did a very impressive acting.

During this very bland 80 minutes I've always been thinking: "When does the story begin?". When the movie came to its end, I was thinking: "That's not it! I've paid for a movie, show me one!". This is definitely the worst film ever made in Austria. It's a shame that movies like this are traded the figureheads of Austrian films. Don't waste your money, don't waste your time! Not even for the DVD.

This is my first review, but there's something about that movie that made me want to share my thoughts about it.

I've seen this movie a few times, and for me this movie is pure masochism, the joy of feeling uncomfortable. The Horror does not come from jumpscares but from the cold distance that comes from the colleagues. Maybe you really need to be an austrian to fully understand the feeling that Irene goes through.

When i was somewhere around the same age like Irene, i moved to eastern Austria close to the location this movie was filmed, at the same time when to movie was released. I also got a job in a kinda old fashioned Business that aimed the upper classes. The distance between colleagues themself and the bosses was huge and cold. Something i never experienced before. And this movie is so honest and good in portraying this distance, that i always can identify myself with Irene. I am the opposite of a shy person, but this tension at work makes you a shy mouse like Irene is. You're trying to create a friendshipy like relation to your colleagues, whom you see every day, but for an outsider it's nearly impossible to join the "inner circle". For an open minded person this is hard to accept, that it needs many months, if not years, to join the inner circle of the staff, that makes you feel welcome into the business you spend every day in. And theres no other movie, wich i saw so far, that is so good in transporting that feeling of cold Austrian distance between co-workers.

I especially want to mention the great work of Marlene Streeruwitz who did a brilliant job in acting one of the bosses, Frau Maschek. For me she is the austrian counterpart of Robert de Niro - An actor who loves to play the kind of person she hates like the most in real life. She keeps in all good manners, but lets you know that she doesn't trust you by the way she speaks to you in a bored and slightly annoyed way.

The work of the actors and how they are portrayed is brilliant and couldn't be performed better. The story itself has some weak parts, but in my opinion this movie isn't about the story, it's about what you feel while you're watching how Irene tries to become part of people who may be forced (?) to keep a distance but still sometimes show a little spark of sympathy that gives Irene the hope to become a real part of the team someday.

Allthough the story on itself isn't that thrilling i love the feelings that this movie is able to transport. If the story itself would be a bit more demanding this movie would get 10/10.