MovieChat Forums > New Rose Hotel (1999) Discussion > Mood piece

Mood piece

posted 12 years ago by asktheages
5 replies | jump to latest

This is a strange film, even for Ferrara. I think in a way it's best looked at as a mood piece. I still don't understand very much of the plot even after a second viewing, but it's a fascinating and intoxicating viewing experience all the same.

Jonathan Rosenbaum hits the nail on the head in his review:
"It’s not at all surprising that Abel Ferrara’s most recent feature (1998) has failed to find an American distributor or that some of his most eloquent defenders have labeled this transgressive adaptation of a William Gibson story the collapse of a major talent. A murky and improbable tale about prostitution, industrial espionage, and manufactured viruses, it works on the very edge of coherence even before the final 20 minutes or so, during which earlier portions of the film are replayed with minor variations and additions. On the other hand, few American films in recent years have been so beautifully composed and color coordinated shot by shot, and the overall experience of an opium dream is so intense that you might stop making demands of the narrative once you realize that none of the usual genre expectations is going to be met. Almost all the principal action occurs offscreen, and most of Ferrara and Christ Zois’s script concentrates on scenes between a corporate raider named Fox (Christopher Walken); his deputy, X (Willem Dafoe); and Sandii (Asia Argento, daughter of cult horror director Dario Argento), an Italian prostitute hired to seduce a Japanese scientist. Recurring aerial shots of unidentified cities and a good many dimly lit interiors alternate with grainy video-surveillance images to create the visual equivalent of a multinational labyrinth in which you might easily lose yourself. Ferrara’s previous feature, The Blackout–also unseen in the U.S., and brutally yanked from the Film Center’s Ferrara retrospective by a new distributor that still has no release plans for it–is an equally beautiful film object in some ways, though I found its story rather banal; New Rose Hotel doesn’t have enough of a story to share that problem. Coproduced by Walken and Dafoe, it’s too far off the beaten path to please most audiences, but I find its decadent erotic poetry irresistible."

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

Watched it. Thought it was way too talky and way too jerkily meandering to work as a mood piece. And, anyway, whatever mood it created, it definitely didn´t appeal to me - sometimes it´s obnoxiously sleazy, at others maddeningly dull and the final 20 minutes of repetitions from earlier in the film don´t leave any impression at all. Ultimately plays like soft porn with a commentary track. One big void only a small part of which gets filled with something meaningful or interesting. And no, I didn´t really "get" the thing on the plot level, either.

It seems that after the early-to-mid-nineties successes Ferrara set out to develop kind of an idiosyncratic style of his own - something extremely elliptical and fragmented, yet both The Blackout and New Rose Hotel look to have missed the mark completely. On paper the basic concept of concentrating on the effect dramatic events have on characters rather than those events themselves, looks very intriguing, but, yeah, I just don´t think it works. At all. No idea why Ferrara insists on such verbose material when capturing movement and action and communicating impressions with the camera are - or at least used to be - clearly his forte.

The silliest part is that I almost feel guilty for not digging it - recommended as it came and all...

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] asktheages 12 years ago

Well, I can't say I'm too surprised -- it is a very polarizing film, even for big Ferrara fans. I mean, just the 4.5 rating on here is a good hint as to its very marginal niche/semi-cult appeal. (There are indeed actually critics like Brad Stevens who consider it the greatest film ever made).

As for the film being talky, I don't think I ever thought of this. I guess there is a lot of dialogue, but I like the way it is so insistent on the big "plot" of the film, Hiroshi etc. when none of that ever really happens onscreen. The whole film is a big tease for something that never happened, or never worked, or in any case can't be attained. The narrative abandons the viewer. The film slips through the cracks. It's that unattainable object of desire, the elusive quality of desire itself. It's this feeling that makes the film work and become even profound for me.

I'm trying to think of why this one does it for me but Blackout doesn't. That film essentially had nothing of interest to say, pretty generic subject matter; and even the style of it seemed a bit clumsily executed. I thought somewhat similar things on first viewing of New Rose, but with a few more viewings I just find it fascinating. I like the claustrophobia of the film, with only a few real characters and a few settings (this is ostensibly like a play, or theater, but is handled by Ferrara quite cinematically). There's just a certain world it creates, as Rosenbaum says, an opium den-decadent feeling, that I enjoy visiting. But less superficially, I think the much-maligned last 20-30 minutes of Dafoe's "flashbacks" is really a rather poignant dissection of the nature of memory, and guilt, and regret. It's sort of like the last stretch of Mulholland Dr, but much more interesting IMO.

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

"The whole film is a big tease for something that never happened, or never worked".

Unfortunately the film itself emulates that particular theme too closely :) And I did not experience this never-satisfied tease as the kind of nagging, spellbinding sense of a void, or a lack, one gets from the usual suspect Antonioni. Ultimately, it was more like a case of "so what? Get it over with already" than something inspiring. It´s a subjective matter to be sure, and I did get Ferrara was going for this "opium den feel" of sorts, but similarly to the previously discussed Rivette number, the atmosphere either just isn´t there for me or feels horribly off. And just like with La Bande Des Quatre, the most impressive parts are the transitions between scenes - until it settles back to another one of those lengthy conversations between Walken and Dafoe (here, too, I see the concept, but that in itself isn´t quite enough as it all becomes quite tiresome in the execution), frequently intercut with bouts of pornographic sleaze Ferrara just can´t help but include in almost every one of his goddamn movies.

"The last 20-30 minutes of Dafoe´s "flashbacks" is really a rather poignant dissection of the nature of memory, and guilt, and regret".

Talking of the plot, though, what the hell happened to Walken, anyway? Was it a deliberate suicide or what, that leap from the balcony? The actual story does remain more than just a little bit of a mystery (furthermore, why would Walken/Dafoe be so sure that this Japanese mogul would be prepared to leave everything behing for some run-of-the-mill call girl in the first place? And even if that comes to fruitition, why would it necessitate the Nip´s defection to a rival company? I know these things aren´t crucial to Ferrara´s vision or what he´s primarily interested in, but it´d be nice if they made at least some kind of sense - just as it would be nice for the film to be more coherent in general, and not feel like a project finished in haste). Anyway, what I saw in those last 20-30, was one Dafoe squatting about and reminiscing to the tune of some clumsily, awkwardly orchestrated voiceover; can´t even begin to conceive of how it could be compared to the aesthetic magick of Mulholland Dr´s last stretch... or any other stretch, for that matter (besides, isn´t Lynch´s strategy in all of his "Hollywood Hallucination" period pictures rather similar to what Ferrara was attempting with NRH and The Blackout, in that they, too, are more interested in registering the ripples of some dramatic/tragic event rather than concentrating on the event itself?) The whole thing strikes me as sorely lacking in imagination or aesthetic vision; the idea is there yet the execution jogs somewhere far behind... which is funny because in stuff like Ms.45 or Fear City, it used to be the other way around.

Speaking of highly regarded Ferrara though - I think the Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw put The Addiction in his all-time top 10 or something. Not entirely inexplicable.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] asktheages 12 years ago

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree yet again, as ironically this film, just as with many of those Rivettes, is simply one of those movies that I find very enjoyable and even hypnotic to watch, but nearly impossible to "defend" it to other people, or clearly articulate why I like it so. I see its flaws, its imperfections, its silliness, but it's just got an overarching aesthetic design that I find beautiful, as with the Rivette, and this is something one either "gets" so to speak, or doesn't.

Either that or I'm just deadly tired. But I'm always up for back-and-forths on Lynch or Polanski or Kubrick or Malick, or PTA (speaking of, have you seen The Master yet? I'm interested to see what you think. It's an incredibly strange and ultimately frustrating film that I think doesn't quite accomplish whatever murky, ultra-ambiguous thematic goals it set out for in the first place. The whole thing's damn near impossible to make sense of, not always in a good way; on the upside, though, the first hour or so is one of the finest pieces of pure filmmaking since... well, PTA's last one in 2007).

[–] bear022013-588-696101 11 years ago

Chris had less to work with.....this time..than ever.Abel Ferrra?