NEWS: Hotel Chevalier is a Good Film

Once I was able to calm down after seeing Natalie Portman's butt and side boob, the dialog was interesting and I'm actually looking forward to seeing The Darjeeling Limited. I wanted to see it before, though.

i really liked the short

thank you hunter for defending the short and bringing it out of the "bewbies" and "boring" cloud surrounding it.

i think it's all there from the dryness of the delivery of the lines, to the gorgeous panning shots, like the one where she's "playing" with all the little trinkets in the hotel room...all the trinkets were also a good example of the attention to the most infinitesimal detail in every one of anderson's shot.

and the music: always awesome!

can't wait to see darjeeling!

I didn't think it was a bad short especially for being free on the iTunes Store. I don't think they have ever offered a film of this caliber on the iTunes Store for free. On top of that, the shots of Natalie's body really are nice in more than one way (ie it is nice seeing her body but upon second glance, you see more of her character's development). I did think that it followed a formula for many foreign short films in that most of the story is told through character action with very little dialog. That doesn't make this a bad short film it is just that I have already seen this type of story many, many times told in the same way.

i enjoyed this short very much. After I watched it, I too was thinking about what I know and don't know about these characters and their relationship. I found this to be a very thoughtful piece and loved the execution of the lines. The sparseness added to the intrigue of this film. I adore the individualized quirkiness of both Schwartzman and Portman. I will most certainly be watching this at the very least a few more times.

I have to agree, they so alot to each other in thier reactions to each other. Dialogue is secondary. Nice butt too. Whatever everyone has one.

I found a lot of the dialogue and shots to be quite beautiful. He says he doesn't care, but he makes all the effort of setting up the room before she gets there. The short conversation where he says "I promise you I will never be your friend" was amazing.

I liked it a lot. Hell I even had a few of my favorite lines of dialogue on my blog for few days and it get pretty heavily ignored. To each their own I suppose.

erm...just so's you know...the celeb worship group aren't the only people talking about Natalie Portman's Bruised Right Buttock...there is a film club and we seem to like it...Hotel Chevalier, not Natalie Portman's hindquarters...well, that;s alright too...my point is, not everyone thought it was boring, just the people who downloaded it for a peek at Padme's Pooper. ( I realize pooper is exactly appropriate in this case but I couldn't think of a better alliteration for it)

The film is a beautiful 'slice-of-fragmented-awkward-damaged-life' piece. The kind of thing that Mr. Anderson has done so well in the past. I'm looking forward to spending more time with these characters and learning a little bit about what makes them tick.

I haven't (maybe because I'm not really listening) heard any negative comments, yet, about the film. I'm not really sure where this article came from, but anything that draws attention to good art... YAY!

When's the last time a short film of any kind generated Hollywood buzz? This is sort of weird and unfair. "But zomg it's got Natalie Portman!" Yeah, but it kind of sort of sucks in that way only Wes Anderson films can. Whether she's naked or not means jack shit. This is just Wes Anderson sucking at his own cash teat, and it's a little unnerving that a short film of any kind would make a splash. They were really the last films that were untouched, still free to be art, experimentation, and a filmmaker's exploration of his abilities and limits. When Apple started running them in iTunes, it was just good exposure. But this one's a cash cow and a billboard; just look at the Apple product placement, and the flaming ad for Louis Vuiton in the credits. I don't know if it's bad, but it's certainly weird and puts me off a little.

(For the record, Natalie Portman was already naked in "Goya's Ghost.")

(Also, Jason Schwartzman is three feet tall.)

(Also, the next person I see who calls Wes Anderson an "indie filmmaker" will get their throat karate-chopped in.)

i'm just sad that they don't have the film in the australian itunes - how lame.

i adore all that wes anderson does. whatevz

First I just wanna get out of the way that I loved this film. Then I wanna say, for a FREE short film, of course there is going to be product placement. I actually didn't notice it though. *shrug*

Good is such a poor word for it. Good doesn't describe the nature of the poisonous relationship as it is conveyed to the audience. The story does speak volumes in very few words and that is something some people will enjoy - I would also guess these people enjoy the wit and density one would find in a play.

The bruises do say something, but I don't know if we can assume kinky shit. I think there is an element to her character that tells me she is self-destructive by her choice to see this man that she loves but has scorned. I think if she were into kinky bedroom play her previous lover might have more of an idea or foresight into their existence.

She takes control of the situation having him remove her boots. He then begins to kiss her stomach, succumbing to her in a near worshiping position that I can see when I watch it. He takes comfort in that moment and it almost feels maternal. Telling me, with the support of a lot more of the story, that she has always been in control.

...I'm entirely sure that more of the story could be discussed at length and maybe that could lend strength to the idea that I thought it was 'good.'

I found it far from a boring.

Chevalier was an interesting film, and was certainly well done, but I can't go so far as to say that I liked it. Anderson's films just seem to have this je ne sais quoi about them that draws me into a blind rage. Perhaps I simply think it's that he seems to focus so much on subtlety that he forgets that there's an actual plot and characters that need developing. This isn't nearly so important in a short story---and, in fact, in many ways it's better if there isn't as much---but in his feature films it tends to leave me feeling too much like I'm simply watching somebody's day-to-day actions with no understanding of who they really are.

That said, there wasn't too much about Hotel Chevalier that I disliked except for the whole. It was almost as if the whole thing was somehow less than the sum of its parts. The choice of music worked well, the actors played their parts to perfection, the nod to events that happened prior to the on-screen moments while still leaving them vague enough to allow the viewer to fill them in on his or her own... all of these things were wonderful.

But somehow it left me feeling unsatisfied.

In my opinion, that cheapens the whole thing. Short films aren't really meant to be commercially successful. They're little gems that you see at film festivals between features, or tiny episodes that are shown before movies in general release. They're fun things that directors do between big projects to keep their minds and skills fresh, not giant billboards for existing products. It's basically Wes Anderson begging for attention.

As for the product placement, it cheapens a heretofore untouched type of film. Even quote-unquote experimental shorts are corporate billboards now. That angers me more than Wes Anderson's pleas for attention.

Tha'ts half my problem with Wes Anderson right there. Everything is superfluously built to have some kind of meaning, but there are no clues as to what that meaning might be. So you end up with pseudointellectuals and hipsters arguing over what the smallest bullshit in the movie symbolizes, when it probably had no intended meaning to begin with other than to trick people into thinking it has some deep significance. So Anderson now can seems like some cinematic virtuoso because a million different people have projected their overstuffed interpretation onto what, as a result, has no meaning at all. How many of you know what a MacGuffin is? Well, Anderson's MacGuffins are his entire films.

The best example would be bad poetry made of nonsensical words that the writer insists are full of depth and meaning, but are actually just a whole bunch of words that the writer probably doesn't know the definition of.

That was a body double, confirmed by Portman's rep.

i disagree subtlety doesn't necessarily mean ambiguous or vague.... i think his dialogue is sparse and beautiful, simple and to the point...yes it's subtle compared to other movies around, and yes there is a slight distance one can feel from the "characters" but isn't that the point...this is not cinema verite...they are very specific complicated characters in a film and they have strange and unusual relationships, but their feelings come right through... i thought tenembaums was extremely emotional and, in the end, a simple family drama
with people falling in and out of love, emotions confused, and people trying to gain acceptance...how more real do you want it?

it just seems that you are bitter for some reason....who cares how hipters and pseudointellectuals interpret the movie...ultimately film is a highly personal experience and if you didn't enjoy it because you prefer other types of movies then say so...

and yes..some things have no meaning other than being there in the scene....and the beauty of it is what you get out of it...

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the impetus behind making short films, and their place in the world, is much more expansive than the narrow definition you've constructed of what they're "meant to be."

I've made short films. And I sure as hell never made them with anything in mind other than furthering my filmmaking ability. And I certainly never made them with financial gain at the fore of my thoughts. I'd like for you to share your firsthand short-filmmaking experience.

Even the full-body shots from the side? Because the only thing that separates her scene in Chevalier with the one (that I'm thinking of) in Goya's Ghost is that she turns her body just enough to show the other ass cheek. And if she really did get a full-body double and a digital head replacement, my respect for her as a film actress is cut exactly in half.

i guess major hollywood short films are financed by dreams and ground up angel babies......and, for gods sake, they try to sell you designer handbags subliminally!...the characters are secondary and forget the production design which has very little to do with art.....

can't mess with my boy wes!

I'd like you to tell me exactly what Natalie Portman was thinking when she said, as deadpan as she could, "If we fuck, I'll feel like shit tomorrow."

And I guarantee you it will be different from what I thought she was thinking when I heard her say the line.

And I guarantee it will be different from what another person thought.

And so on.

You'd think that ambiguity would be good, but, having seen Wes Anderson's films, the impression that I've gotten is that he's essentially denied the actors any leeway at all to make their imprints on their characters. They are devoid of personality. Their words don't make up for the fact that every character delivers their lines in the exact same way. What they say should be brilliant, but instead it's devoid of any human touch, and the emotion is sucked straight out. It sounds like HAL 9000 is saying their lines, and unless he's trying to make the point that people are robots (which, quite frankly, he's not), then he's taking great material and making it mediocre.

I'm sure he'd be an exceptional novelist, where people project their own mental images onto good situations and reasonably exceptional dialogue. Instead, he gives us good dialogue that's been positively annihilated by his mediocre filmmaking ability.

Yes, I see characters in Chevalier. I see people with some kind of history together. And if anyone else had handled the material, I might have been interested in them. They might have had personalities. But instead they're emotional vacuums, perfect for overanalytical hipsters to project pseudo-meaning into empty actions. And, quite frankly, they're boring.

mmm, i don't know...i think it means that she'll regret having found him in a hotel room in paris where he's obviously hiding from her. She'll regret having sex with him because she's hurt him and he's run away. She'll regret having found him because she knows the relationship is doomed....would you disagree...i don't think it's ambiguous...

in my previous post i called it subtle and straight and to the point....minimalism that allows emotion to come through..i believe even with more weight....

i'm sorry, again i see a lot of emotion there....in a very theatrical post-modern (oh no! not every hipsters favorite hyphenated adjective) setting...

well, i'm sorry you didn't enjoy the short. I'm looking forward to darjeeling and see more of jason schwartzman's "quirky" character and perhaps learn a bit more about him. lay of the hipsters, just don't pay them no mind and they will leave you alone and one day you'll find out that you just might have been a hipster with a heart of gold yourself.......you you you...overanalytical jock...