Film

“Hypnotic”
—Melissa Anderson, Artforum

Akerman’s unblinking camera prowls the corridors, rooms, and elevators of a seedy Manhattan flophouse in this silent, haunting study in stillness. Channeling the noir-tinged visual style of Edward Hopper, Hotel Monterey conjures a subtly eerie mood of mystery, melancholy, and loneliness.

“Akerman, reclining with the regality of a grand odalisque, confidently stakes out her place, both as an artist and as a survivor of the chaotic city just outside this nook.”
—Melissa Anderson, The Village Voice

A slow, circular pan across a small apartment is continuously repeated, with an occasional glimpse of a lone human figure: the filmmaker herself, staring impassively from her bed. The way she seems to disappear amid the claustrophobic clutter of her surroundings makes this early structuralist short a ghostly, unsettling self-portrait.