We are first introduced to Mr. K (Crispin Glover) as the travelling magician, performing a magic show (with staged tricks) for a less than enthusiastic audience. After the show is over, in an effort to find accomodation for the night before his next act, he stumbles across a remote hotel with an odd receptionist at the front desk who neglects to answer any of his questions, but willingly provides him with the room for the night. But as he wakes up to leave, he realises that there is no exit to the hotel and that he’s stuck in a horrific never ending purgatory.
Not only is Mr. K trapped in this nightmare, but other characters have also seemingly taken residence in the hotel, and are so far gone in this reality that most of them haven’t taken a step outside of the hotel in years. They’ve grown completely accustomed to their lives, whether that be slaving away as chefs in a commercial kitchen, being wealthy socialites throwing exuberant parties, or simply living their days as residents who are comfortable yet complacent in their situations. There’s also the mysterious woman at the front desk who appears haphazardly with her dog, only to disappear when a corner is turned.
There is no concept of a time of day in this hotel, which only exacerbates the peculiar nature of the hotel and its inhabitants, causing Mr. K to go, for lack of a better word, insane. He descends further into this state of delirion, and loses sight of the existence of an exit, and weirdly enough becomes an apprentice to the head chef. But soon begins to come back into his own, as he begins to map out the hotel with etchings on the walls in a desperate attempt to understand what is happening around him, and inevitably ends up tearing at the wallpaper to reveal a strange living breathing creature bursting at the surface.
Mr. K is the definition of a fever dream. A drama full of surreal horror tropes that are reminiscent of the visuals David Lynch often portrayed, blended with bizarre and unexplainable science fiction elements, as well as being a homage to the concept of a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare. There is not one moment in the film that isn’t absolutely absurd.
Despite the film’s short 95 minute run time, the pacing of the story feels quite slow and dragged out. The more the plot progresses, the more experimental the film becomes in a way that feels almost incomprehensible to the audience. But you can’t help but feel like this also lends itself to the claustrophobia the characters are feeling in the film themselves. You feel imprisoned in their surreal world as much as they feel trapped; where we’re going in circles and watching the same types of shots, looking at the same green patterned wallpaper, and going back and forth between the same rooms, without any grasp of what the outside world looks like in their world. It almost doesn’t feel real and becomes a type of dreamscape for the viewer.
But aside from the interesting filmmaking choices that help highlight certain metaphors and morals the story puts forward, the film does have more than a few lulls. You could feel the story trying to take on complex societal issues, but come to a lot of ungratifying conclusions that leaves the viewer dazed and confused more than anything. There were no clear explanations, which at times can help with creating an atmosphere to entice an audience; as it did with this film in mimicking the claustrophobia the characters felt and projecting that onto the audience. But most of the time, it felt like a choice that the director, Tallulah H. Schwab, took to show off and demonstrate their own ability to create an avant garde type of film, without any real substance.
While Crispin Glover does an amazing job at playing a strange and tortured soul, his motivations as a character also felt disorientated, especially with the sub plot of Mr. K working his way up as a chef in the hotel’s kitchen. His main drive is to escape the hotel and find the exit, and that subplot felt out of place and created a weird halt in the flow of the story.
Mr. K is a great example of a film that leaves viewers sitting with their thoughts and questioning everything that they had just seen. What does our place in the world mean, and what is the importance of our beings? Is human connection the crux to everything significant in life? Who are we if we are not the things that bring us purpose? How do we progress as a society if we fear change? Admittedly, the plot wasn’t completely fleshed out and it felt like these unconventional tropes were thrown in the film just because, but there are good moments in the film. It poses more questions than answers, and it also definitely allows itself to be up to the audience’s own – albeit, existential – interpretation.
A beautiful eerie nightmare.
The film is currently showing at Fantastic Film Festival Australia, so be sure to catch it while you can.
I liked it.
Even kitchen part feeled in place, because main character is person who cant say no and is involontairly catched in situation. And he is still confused with whats going on.
As movie goes he,s “growing balls”.
For me whole movie is about discovering confidence in yourself.
I can say that I understood some of the film’s philosophical and profound intentions. The hotel can be likened to life, to a mother, or to planet Earth. There is no way out, and the two old twins, representing the sun and moon, and thus night and day, arrive there by chance. One gives him a cup of coffee, and the other says she’s French, alluding to the moon’s resemblance to French cheese. They are also weaving threads, which represent the threads of time. The kitchen represents a job or a field of specialization in which a person spends their life for something trivial, like studies, research, and cooking eggs. But everyone wants this and even wants to get promoted. The head chef represents the manager, the father, or the professor; he wants to achieve his trivial dream through you. The hotel’s residents are all the people we have met or known in our lives. The room represents the protagonist’s life as he tries to escape this matrix, but people poke their noses into his life, symbolizing that they have occupied his room. People don’t want to believe the truth in front of them; they are lazy, foolish, and cowardly. They hate when someone is distinguished, bold, and thinks outside the box. Different classes, classes, titles, and specializations; the strange man he found sleeping at his feet represents death, and the life of this hero can also be understood as the adventure undertaken by the sperm that wins the fertilization of the mother’s egg and comes out into life.
Jesus what a mess of a story. Not in a good way. Is you make it to the end going for a closure and an explanation that can justify 90 minutes of this rubbish, well you will get very disappointed.