A no-fun review of "Hotel Coolgardie"
Initially I was surprised that the documentary feature, Hotel Coolgardie, directed by Pete Gleeson in 2016, had received film festival accolades. Besides the very linear plot told with lots of rough and ready camera work, there appears to be little else: No journey of discovery, no character experiencing a surprising moment of clarity, no moment where the viewer is forced to reconsider her outlook on the world. There is no allegory, parable or metaphor. Where's the meta?
The premise of the film is basically a horror gameshow: If two young women can survive verbal, sexual and emotional abuse with a convincing smile on their faces for 3 months, then they can cash up and carry on with their travel adventures.
The two young women are Stephanie and Lina, travelling friends from Finland who, after losing their money to thieves in Bali, look for a job in Australia so they can replenish their savings and continue their adventures. They accept a job offer to work as barmaids at a remote "country pub" with a 3 month commitment.
I could already feel the low level dread rising in me.
As Stephanie and Lina move across the remote, dusty outback on their way to Coolgardie, a barely town that caters to the crass, unquenchably thirsty labourers of the local open-pit mine, It would have been a fun touch to see some visual effects illustrating time travel (old school pages ripping off a calendar anyone?) because we are now truly going back in time. Waaaay before the #metoo movement but also apparently way before most of the 21st century. This town seemed so lost in time, velociraptors bouncing in the background instead of kangaroos wouldn't have been amiss (Hello magic realism!) But sadly no. The sign outside the bar announcing "New Girls Tonight" has to tell the tale single handedly.
Once ensconced in the sad, fly-ridden titular hotel where they share a room, the Finnish gals are given an expletive filled crash course in bar-maiding from their honey badger of a boss. This is when the game show fun really begins as the next 45 minutes unfold with customers jeering, cajoling, objectifying, cursing, belittling, degrading and intimidating the gals, but also asking them out. (Spin the wheel!)
But it isn't all about objectifying the gals, there are also scenes when the drunken men lament when women in their lives left them broke and brokenhearted, or when women in their lives took their beloved trucks or when women in their lives mysteriously no longer wanted to have relationships with them. But what was conspicuously absent was any backstory or information about Lina or Stephanie. Despite being in almost every scene, all we know about them is that, well, they're female. It's almost as if the objectification of them in the story extends to the filmmaking itself. It's almost....meta?
By keeping the lens on the young women week after week in this story without any filmmaking pizzazz (and sadly no dinosaurs), the film becomes a straight-up reflection of what it means to walk the world female. To be a woman "seen." It is a 90 minute distillation of the decades long female experience through the beer googles of a toothless, twangy, bar owner and his drunken mates.
At this point, my low level dread was feeling increasingly familiar. It reminded me of every boss who ever massaged my shoulders at work, who ever said I was no fun. Of that guy who grabbed my breast on the subway and ran off laughing, of the guy in grade school who masturbated under the desk while staring at me, of my producer who asked me, as the editor, to splice outtakes of the lead actress into a porno as a joke for the wrap party ("don't be like that! She'll love it") and let's not even talk about that trip to Morocco.
And what was I doing in Morocco? The same thing as Lina and Stephanie: trying to adventure and explore the world and carpe the diem. And isn't that our right? Isn't that the joy of being young and free and curious? Not in Coolgardie (like so many places, foreign and domestic) where female adventure comes not only with the constant threat to personal safety but sometimes with a blatant, write it in capital letters on a sign out front level of objectification that is shocking and depressing. (New Meat Tonight!).
Late in the film, Lina and Steph are summarily fired. The honey badger doesn't think they seem sufficiently joyful and grateful for their positions at the bar (3 month commitment, wot?) He calls the employment agency and asks for two more girls to replace them. If that doesn't encapsulate the often vulnerable position of young, female workers, I don't know what does. Smile, don't rock the boat if you want to keep that job. Hmmmm, metaphor maybe...
Ok, I was finally getting the film festival accolades but did I actually like this film? No. The same way I didn't like that I never got to see Morocco. Too many space hogging, leering, presumptuous and aggressive men blocked my view. What should have been a trip filled with adventure for two young women ends up being an all too familiar story about predation and self preservation.
Don't like my review? Well I'm just no fun.
Initially I was surprised that the documentary feature, Hotel Coolgardie, directed by Pete Gleeson in 2016, had received film festival accolades. Besides the very linear plot told with lots of rough and ready camera work, there appears to be little else: No journey of discovery, no character experiencing a surprising moment of clarity, no moment where the viewer is forced to reconsider her outlook on the world. There is no allegory, parable or metaphor. Where's the meta?
The premise of the film is basically a horror gameshow: If two young women can survive verbal, sexual and emotional abuse with a convincing smile on their faces for 3 months, then they can cash up and carry on with their travel adventures.
The two young women are Stephanie and Lina, travelling friends from Finland who, after losing their money to thieves in Bali, look for a job in Australia so they can replenish their savings and continue their adventures. They accept a job offer to work as barmaids at a remote "country pub" with a 3 month commitment.
I could already feel the low level dread rising in me.
As Stephanie and Lina move across the remote, dusty outback on their way to Coolgardie, a barely town that caters to the crass, unquenchably thirsty labourers of the local open-pit mine, It would have been a fun touch to see some visual effects illustrating time travel (old school pages ripping off a calendar anyone?) because we are now truly going back in time. Waaaay before the #metoo movement but also apparently way before most of the 21st century. This town seemed so lost in time, velociraptors bouncing in the background instead of kangaroos wouldn't have been amiss (Hello magic realism!) But sadly no. The sign outside the bar announcing "New Girls Tonight" has to tell the tale single handedly.
Once ensconced in the sad, fly-ridden titular hotel where they share a room, the Finnish gals are given an expletive filled crash course in bar-maiding from their honey badger of a boss. This is when the game show fun really begins as the next 45 minutes unfold with customers jeering, cajoling, objectifying, cursing, belittling, degrading and intimidating the gals, but also asking them out. (Spin the wheel!)
But it isn't all about objectifying the gals, there are also scenes when the drunken men lament when women in their lives left them broke and brokenhearted, or when women in their lives took their beloved trucks or when women in their lives mysteriously no longer wanted to have relationships with them. But what was conspicuously absent was any backstory or information about Lina or Stephanie. Despite being in almost every scene, all we know about them is that, well, they're female. It's almost as if the objectification of them in the story extends to the filmmaking itself. It's almost....meta?
By keeping the lens on the young women week after week in this story without any filmmaking pizzazz (and sadly no dinosaurs), the film becomes a straight-up reflection of what it means to walk the world female. To be a woman "seen." It is a 90 minute distillation of the decades long female experience through the beer googles of a toothless, twangy, bar owner and his drunken mates.
At this point, my low level dread was feeling increasingly familiar. It reminded me of every boss who ever massaged my shoulders at work, who ever said I was no fun. Of that guy who grabbed my breast on the subway and ran off laughing, of the guy in grade school who masturbated under the desk while staring at me, of my producer who asked me, as the editor, to splice outtakes of the lead actress into a porno as a joke for the wrap party ("don't be like that! She'll love it") and let's not even talk about that trip to Morocco.
And what was I doing in Morocco? The same thing as Lina and Stephanie: trying to adventure and explore the world and carpe the diem. And isn't that our right? Isn't that the joy of being young and free and curious? Not in Coolgardie (like so many places, foreign and domestic) where female adventure comes not only with the constant threat to personal safety but sometimes with a blatant, write it in capital letters on a sign out front level of objectification that is shocking and depressing. (New Meat Tonight!).
Late in the film, Lina and Steph are summarily fired. The honey badger doesn't think they seem sufficiently joyful and grateful for their positions at the bar (3 month commitment, wot?) He calls the employment agency and asks for two more girls to replace them. If that doesn't encapsulate the often vulnerable position of young, female workers, I don't know what does. Smile, don't rock the boat if you want to keep that job. Hmmmm, metaphor maybe...
Ok, I was finally getting the film festival accolades but did I actually like this film? No. The same way I didn't like that I never got to see Morocco. Too many space hogging, leering, presumptuous and aggressive men blocked my view. What should have been a trip filled with adventure for two young women ends up being an all too familiar story about predation and self preservation.
Don't like my review? Well I'm just no fun.