Profound, beautiful, moving

Rating: 9/10 (17 November 2015)

This movie is set in a Swiss wellness hotel. It's summer, and the mountain scenery is beautiful. The hotel (as grand hotels tend to do) has a rhythm and character of its own.
The guests are performers, many of whom are struggling with past glory. They are withdrawn from the world here, and the director captures the beauty, limitations and artificiality of their retreat.
Two of the guests, Fred and Mick, are elderly, and the movie focuses on them, especially Fred. (I must say Caine and Keitel played these roles extremely well.)
Those who require action and a forward-moving plot may not like this film so much. If you think about it, only two things really happen in the film (although I'm not going to disclose them here). The rest of the film was a complicated portrait of a particular place, specific people and a certain theme.
This cinematic portrait was painted with meaningful dialogue and beautifully filmed scenes. The scenes are varied and surprising -- sometimes surreal, sometimes whimsical, sometimes profound, sometimes banal.
This idiosyncratic non-Hollywood movie has profound things to say about old age and life in general. I'm not sure that younger people will really get it. Art, fame, memory, beauty, love, the very meaning of our lives... It's a difficult movie to review because I'm not sure I've grasped everything. I've only seen it once. I suppose one message is to lead your life to its fullest, even in old age. Move forward, not back. Feel, don't talk.
The beauty of the movie, the intelligence of the dialogue and the astonishing character development hammer home the movie's points in one devastating scene after the next.
I thought the final song at the end would bring it all together, and after looking at the lyrics, I suppose it does. It is too moving for words. I have to see this movie again, but I'm almost afraid to go. This movie caught me at a vulnerable point.