DVD - Hotel Monterey

Hotel Monterey explores an aging Manhattan hotel in the 1970's, along with, sometimes, its occupants. Akerman trains her camera on the hallways, lobby, elevators, and various rooms in the hotel.

While this would, ultimately, work better as a series of stills in a gallery, rather than a film, there are interesting moments in it, but its hour long run time (completely silent) is prohibitive for almost anyone except hardcore fans of observational cinema. There are moments that definitely peak interest, such as a group of elderly women who sit in the lobby, or rooms that are captured with their occupants in them, but this is the kind of film I wouldn't recommend unless your into staring at the same thing for long periods of time.

DVD - News From Home

It is the late 1970's and Chantal Akerman has just moved to New York. Through locked off shots of the city in a wide variety of locale's, and voice over of Akerman reading her mother's letters to her over this period of time, the audience is given a sense of the kind of varied emotions a parent goes through when their child not only leaves home, but ventures across an ocean to a new, mysterious place.

News From Home can be incredibly slow at times, with long shots of the city (anywhere between two and three minutes long, probably having been shot on 100' reels of 16mm). It's the letters from Akerman's mother that put the film in perspective and give it a life. Otherwise it's just a bunch of shots of New York City, and, for the most part, not always interesting ones. The film is interesting, to a point, but it should really be about half of its running time, or less.

DVD - La Chambre

This is the synopsis from Criterion's website - In Chantal Akerman’s early short film La chambre, we see the furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Akerman herself staring back at us.

That pretty much sums up the film. It's multiple 360 degree shots of Akerman's apartment, for about ten minutes. Not much else to say.

DVD - Mr. Freedom

Eclipse is a, relatively, new subsidiary of the Criterion Collection, that is putting out DVD's of much lesser known films by great filmmakers. Unlike Criterion, though, these are stripped down affairs, sporting only digital restoration and a new transfer, but no other extras. My first encounter with Eclipse is their William Klein collection, of which, I have seen Mr. Freedom, and The Model Couple. The transfers on these films were great, so, ultimately, I think Eclipse has done a good job, from what I'm seeing so far, and look forward to more of their releases.

Ultimately, though, I have one problem with Mr. Freedom - I have no idea what the f@$% this movie is about! I mean, I know what its about, it's a farcical, over the top, commentary on American Imperialism, and especially the Vietnam War, but... Watch it, and see if you can figure it out. John Abbey plays the title role, Mr. Freedom, a super-hero-ish character, who wears a ridiculous costume, and goes to France to liberate the people from the tyrannical communist oppressors led by the likes of Moujik Man (a stand in for the Russians) and "Red China Man", a giant inflatable Chinese dragon.

Now, I know what you're thinking - How could a giant, inflatable, communist Chinese dragon be a threat to democracy? I don't know. You're guess is as good as mine. The film starts off on an incredibly strange note, and devolve's from there. By the time you've sat their, watching this thing for an hour and a half, you'll just end up wondering where your hour and a half went. If your into a film that bashes America in really oblique, and increasingly ridiculous ways, then Mr. Freedom is your film, but, to be honest, I've seen much better criticism of a nation in a lot of other films. Mr. Freedom was definitely not for me.

If you want to get an idea of how weird this movie is, here is a, relatively, tame clip from it -