MovieChat Forums > Hotel Chevalier (2007) Discussion > Significance of the the bruises?

Significance of the the bruises?


I'd like to hear peoples' thoughts before offering my own interpretation.

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she fell out of a treehouse.

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She was raped.

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she was with a guy who treated her like crap,which is why she ran back to her old lover

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[deleted]

Can I get fries with that?

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these are all silly answers. she wasn't "raped" nor was the last man she was with necessarily abusing her. the fingers on her arms are clearly "fingerprint" bruises from passionate and--perhaps--rough lovemaking. same with the bruises on her flank/ass. the bruises, which jack studies and considers as she averts his questions, are meant to suggest that she has, indeed, slept with another/other man/men in the interval between the last time she and jack were together. it is the subtle details of hotel chevalier--details like this one--that make it such a fantastic little film. while the conversation is, on a literal level, somewhat cryptic, even mundane, the things they don't say--jack's affected preparations before her arrival (music, change of clothes, the way he lies on the bed as if to suggest he had just been waiting there like that), the bruises, the silences in their dialogue--drive the narrative and answer our questions. this style of storytelling recalls hemingway, and for wes anderson to achieve such an effect on film is quite impressive.

I...drink...your...milkshake! I drink it up!

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