A lot of reviewers look at cinema as merely entertainment and believe a film should 'tell a story'. Well, that's one form of cinema and I suppose it's what the majority of people have been conditioned to want and expect. When I was at university in the 1970's, we watched a lot of underground, experimental and independent films, many of which had very little story or character arc and certainly no 'hero's journey'. Some people got up and walked out, a few stayed. I was one of the few. For that reason, I see Mike Figgis as being a bold and exciting filmmaker and feel it's a great pity that so few people could see what he was attempting to do with Hotel. He wasn't attempting to entertain or tell a story or get you to sympathize with the characters. He was trying new and different ways of making a film. Remember, he had already been a successful mainstream filmmaker. He wanted to do something different. The mostly negative reviews of Hotel are evidence that most people prefer the status quo to innovation, the predictable to the unusual and are easily brainwashed by corporate culture which controls most commercial filmmaking.
Review of Hotel
