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.
