Watch Hotel Monterey

Hotel Monterey is an avant-garde silent film released in 1973, directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. An experimental documentary, the film stands as an exploration of space and time within the setting of a run-down New York hotel. Akerman, known for her minimalist and structural approach to cinema, employs long takes and a static camera to allow viewers to inhabit the spaces she films.

The film is set within the Hotel Monterey, a lower-priced hotel in New York City that appears to cater to a transient population, including the elderly, the marginalized, and perhaps those simply seeking anonymity within the city’s vast canvas. Over the course of an hour, the audience is taken on a silent journey through the empty, uninhabited spaces of this establishment. From its dimly lit corridors to its more personal living quarters, the film captures the hotel's character and the unseen stories that its walls may contain.

Akerman's camera is patient, holding on shots for extended periods which invites viewers to observe the details. The silence of the film emphasizes the visual experience and allows those details to come forward: the textures of the walls, the patterns of light and shadow playing across the floor, the occasional figure crossing the frame, the lingering sense of presence and absence in this setting that is both communal and intensely private.

The film places a strong emphasis on the geometry and the architecture of the hotel, almost turning it into an additional character within the work. The choice of black and white cinematography enriches these textures, contrasting starkly illuminated spaces with dense, enveloping shadows. Without dialogue or narrative, the ambient sounds of the hotel, such as footsteps, doors closing, or distant voices, become the soundtrack, despite the overall silent treatment of the piece.

Hotel Monterey is less about a traditional story and more about a cinematic experience, imbuing a sense of contemplation and introspection in its audience. The structural composition of the shots means that pleasures are drawn not from plot or character development, but from the mediation on the space itself. It is a film that is as much about the viewer's reaction to and interaction with the space as it is about the filmmaker's presentation.

The simplicity of the film's content belies its complexity. As viewers engage with the film, they may begin to ascribe their own meanings and narratives to what they see. This is where Akerman's work shows depth; it's an invitation to the viewer to project their thoughts, memories, and senses into the space, to fill its void with personal interpretation and emotional response. The hotel becomes a canvas for the inner landscape of its viewers, each with unique life experiences and personal histories that color how they perceive the stark, silent images before them.

Throughout the film, Akerman's attention to detail, light, framing, and composition serve to evoke a profound sense of place that resonates with the iterative rhythms of daily life, despite the absence of overt human activity. In the deliberate pacing and observational mode, there's an underlying current of existential introspection that captivates the viewer.

Hotel Monterey might be understood as a paradox, a place teeming with life, suggested by its occupancy and the few transient appearances of people, and yet at the same time, it is depicted as a ghostly, almost otherworldly domain where time seems to stand still. The compelling management of space and absence in the hotel invokes a sense of the invisible - the lives that have passed through, the fleeting nature of human existence, and the ephemeral quality of memories and histories contained within the hotel's walls.

For those accustomed to narrative-driven films, Hotel Monterey may present a challenge. It demands patience, a willingness to engage with the film on its terms, and a surrender to the meditative tempo it sets. As a piece of experimental cinema, it's as much a work of art as a classic documentary. For students of cinema, it serves as an excellent study of how film can manipulate time and space, how absence of sound influences perception, and how a documentary can function without the traditional elements of narrative or character.

In conclusion, Hotel Monterey is a distinctive and thought-provoking entry into the canon of experimental filmmaking. Its silent survey of the interior life of an urban hotel uncovers the inherent beauty and mystery of spaces often overlooked. It is Chantal Akerman’s invitation to viewers to slow down, observe, and find meaning in the most mundane, transforming the act of watching into an active, thoughtful engagement with the world around us.

Hotel Monterey is a 1972 documentary with a runtime of 1 hour and 5 minutes. It has received moderate reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.2.