Chantal Akerman's first feature-length documentary is a look at the Hotel Monterey at 215 West 94th Street in Manhattan. It looks to be a Single Room Occupancy, a type of boarding house that still seems pretty obviously named. We called 'em "SROs" in ironic confusion with a hit Broadway show's "Standing Room Only." I had several friends who lived in SROs back then. They were usually filled with welfare recipients like my friends, and I always thought it was an economically inefficient way to house them. The SROs were privately owned and charged hotel rates, far more than the cost of a series of studio apartments. The SROs my friends lived in offered no services, so how the place looked depended on the roomer. The individual rooms in this movie look clean, well maintained, with decent if cheap linen and drapery typical of a lower-priced hotel in those days, a bit 1970s-gaudily patterned, but easily washed material. Perhaps the Monterey offered services.
The long sequences set in the green-brown corridors where nothing happens is what I have come to associate with Ms. Akerman's documentaries. With no soundtrack, it seems an attempt to show how low-key miserable these people are, stuck in this place like it's the Overlook Hotel. In truth, Ms. Akerman seems to have mistaken specific locations with where people live. My friends may have slept in their SROs, but they lived in New York City, or the library, or inside their heads.
This being Ms. Akerman's movie and not mine, she was free to offer her own view of life in Manhattan. I agree that it's a useful contrast to the glamorous sort of life usually offered in the movies, but just as false and ridiculous. I don't find it interesting enough to stretch out to over an hour. Rather than live in Ms. Akerman's Hotel Monterey, I'd rather live in New York City, or the library, or my head.
The long sequences set in the green-brown corridors where nothing happens is what I have come to associate with Ms. Akerman's documentaries. With no soundtrack, it seems an attempt to show how low-key miserable these people are, stuck in this place like it's the Overlook Hotel. In truth, Ms. Akerman seems to have mistaken specific locations with where people live. My friends may have slept in their SROs, but they lived in New York City, or the library, or inside their heads.
This being Ms. Akerman's movie and not mine, she was free to offer her own view of life in Manhattan. I agree that it's a useful contrast to the glamorous sort of life usually offered in the movies, but just as false and ridiculous. I don't find it interesting enough to stretch out to over an hour. Rather than live in Ms. Akerman's Hotel Monterey, I'd rather live in New York City, or the library, or my head.