The film seems to beg for a less literally interpreted comment than those posted here (Where I looked hoping to find someone who could explain the darn thing).
Usually when people methodically destroy a motel, or start SHOOTING GUNS, the manager comes out and asks them to stop. For some reason that never happens in this movie. Hmm.
It seemed to me that The Old Man and the Old Trailer in the Old Junkyard are the only real things in the story, and The Old Motel with its' crackling neon lights, complete lack of window coverings, and grotesquely stained mattresses a symbolic tableau for his daily reliving of past events in his life and possible present day scenarios. Ghosts from the past appear and wander hazily around the courtyard, even interacting with each other while the old man looks on and listens with varying degrees of emotion, amusement and curiosity, interrupted periodically by his desire for alcohol which plays a large part in the imagined world he inhabits - a world where he is "married to Barbara Mandrel".
The characters suddenly depart as the whole scene bursts into allegorical flames, and the Old Man retreats defeated again to his Old Trailer amid the conflagration. Presumably the nightmare will be repeated on the morrow, like so many Twilight Zone episodes which this movie so closely resembles except with better dialog.
CB
Usually when people methodically destroy a motel, or start SHOOTING GUNS, the manager comes out and asks them to stop. For some reason that never happens in this movie. Hmm.
It seemed to me that The Old Man and the Old Trailer in the Old Junkyard are the only real things in the story, and The Old Motel with its' crackling neon lights, complete lack of window coverings, and grotesquely stained mattresses a symbolic tableau for his daily reliving of past events in his life and possible present day scenarios. Ghosts from the past appear and wander hazily around the courtyard, even interacting with each other while the old man looks on and listens with varying degrees of emotion, amusement and curiosity, interrupted periodically by his desire for alcohol which plays a large part in the imagined world he inhabits - a world where he is "married to Barbara Mandrel".
The characters suddenly depart as the whole scene bursts into allegorical flames, and the Old Man retreats defeated again to his Old Trailer amid the conflagration. Presumably the nightmare will be repeated on the morrow, like so many Twilight Zone episodes which this movie so closely resembles except with better dialog.
CB