Country of Hotels (2023) Film Review
The first thing you think when credits roll in Julio Maria Martino‘s Country of Hotels is that there’s no need to complicate such a good story. This is a convoluted and exaggerated version of something you’ve seen before in films that portray normal settings as versions of purgatory, Hell, or limbo for everyday people. Unfortunately, Martino’s film doesn’t stand with pride alongside its peers as he insists with making his film much more than what it actually is and should be. If you watch it, try to do this exercise: think of the most interesting things in the film. From performances, to camera effects. Pick those apart and you’ll get something better than I got after giving this one a try.
This is the story of a hotel in which weird things occur. The victims are average people who are in some kind of moral conundrum and one specific room has the power to make them fave their own demons. At least, it’s what I was able to observe beyond nudity, gratuitous sex, and lousy acting. It plays like an anthology of some sorts without an arc story, except if you count the random presence of hotel workers with a couple of punchlines. Beyond that initial setting, there’s little to see here. Martino goes for full mystery in how his stories end, and there’s something relevant here, particularly seen through the use of a painting device that’s supposed to represent something that’s never confirmed. This was actually an interesting point in the film that sadly wasn’t developed beyond a couple of good shots and an ominous indication that people were trapped in the picture.
One almost wonders if there’s actually a necessity to produce a film that misses the mark so harshly. But from a creative standpoint, it’s hard to fight it. There’s actually a good idea here, and it goes pretty good in the first segment when a questionable relationship has terrible consequences. Martino designs a plot for both subjects and manages to give them enough dramatic fuel for us to care. However, if you manage to understand what happens, congrats. As for me, I’m still waiting for a confirmation of where they ended up, and how spending the night in the room worked out for them. It’s anyone’s guess.
Martino’s got something going on here. There’s enough knowledge to understand there’s a storytelling potential that was sadly not well used this time and Country of Hotels ends up being a complex miss that you will probably forget about quickly.
