Product: The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
Rating: 5.0
A more feral version of American Beauty...and more rewarding
In some ways, Wim Wenders' Million Dollar Hotel plays like a more feral version of American Beauty - both films begin with narration from the other side, and invite the viewer to experience the last week of the narrator's lives. And both films are in the heightened "Magic Realism" style (the style that allowed flower petals to burst from a cheerleaders blouse in American Beauty, and which allows jump cuts and speed changes in Hotel). Wenders film is more challenging and ultimately more rewarding an experience than Beauty in that there is no outwardly tranquil world in this film for viewers to safely relate to; the interesting assortment of lives in the Hotel are fractured through and through, some of them painfully so, others (like a man who believes he did the studio recordings for the Beatles) amusingly so. These characters are too insane to be figured out intellectually, you must surrender to a more feral version of thought in order to enter their world. "Skinner tried to play dumb...but he was out of his league" is the narrator's description of a detective who arrives at the Hotel on a murder case, and the description is also a challenge to the audience. The detective's case serves as the audience's introduction to the Hotel and to the two lead characters who may or may not be destined for a Romeo and Juliet future. Davies and Jovovich are outstanding in these roles. This is a film that will encourage hours of discussion among couples.By the way, Mel Gibson, playing the detective (Wenders fans will recognize the character as reminiscent of the William Hurt role from Until the End of the World), reportedly got jitters about being in an "art film" and bad-mouthed the production - without cause, as he is completely locked into the character, admirably hiding the "Mel" persona.Two words of warning: If you watch the preview on the DVD, every plot point of the film will be ruined. Also, because this film made no money, they couldn't afford to get the DVD mastered very well. The sound is excellent but the picture shimmers now and then.