HOTEL ATLANTICO
Brazil, 2009, 107 minutes, Colour.
Giulio Andrade.
Directed by Suzana Amaral.
Hotel Atlantico is only the starting point of this journey film, a Brazilian road film. An actor walks along the streets of San Paolo and goes to the hotel, passing a corpse with bloodstains being carried out. He stays in the room only briefly, asking for a whiskey from room service, hearing a couple noisily in the room next door. As he looks at the waterfront, he hails a taxi, goes to the bus station and takes a bus for a coastal city. This begins the journey, an encounter with a Polish archaeologist travelling on the bus who dies. He then accepts a lift from two young men in a car, simply travelling south. When he discovers they plan to kill him, he runs away, taking their car and crashing it. He is given a lift by a man with a horse and cart, taking him to the presbytery of a small village which the priest visits only every Sunday. He is looked after by the sacristan, Antonio, who has an epileptic seizure. The maid, hanging out the clothes, has a sexual encounter with the actor. As he continues on his way, he is run down in an accident and his leg is amputated. Rejecting the kindness of the doctor’s daughter, he is looked after by Sebastian, who eventually takes him on a trip to the sea – where he seems to die. Only to find that he is back at the time before he hailed the taxi.
The film is enigmatic, leaving the ending open-ended (or the writer-director not having an ending in mind).
1.A Brazilian road film? The extent of Brazil, its visualisation? The young actor living the landscapes? Life, death, especially the emphasis on death?
2.The structure of the film: the actor walking through the streets during the credits, into the hotel, on the waterfront, the bus trip, the various stages of his trip, the revelation that this was imagination or anticipation? The classic musical score?
3.The appearance of the actor, young, his clothes, scruffy hair and beard? The puzzle as to who he was? Entering the hotel, asking for the receptionist to bring whiskey, his reaction to the people next door? His walking along the waterfront, the cargo ships? The encounter with the taxi driver, saying that he was tired? Taking the bus, sitting next to the young Polish woman, her telling him her story, the death of her child by drowning in Canada, the bus stop, his meal, looking at the girl, discovering her dead? The police, his avoiding the situation? The meal and his encounter with Leo and Nelson, their recognising him as the film star, inviting him on the trip, the nickname of Get Out? The stop, overhearing the plan to kill him, running, the shooting, taking the car, the flat tyre? His previously fixing their flat tyre? The man with the horse and cart, kindness, the house for the sacristan, his welcome, the woman working in the yard, the sexual encounter, her size? Her thanking him as the priest, wearing the cassock while his clothes were being washed? Antonio, playing the mouth organ, his epileptic seizure? Wanting to recover by himself? The accident, the actor in hospital, his asking the young woman to get out, the doctor reassuring him? Sebastian, his care? The decision to go to the sea, Sebastian never having seen the sea? The trip, the inn, the host and his wife, the hut, on the shore?
4.The actor and his experiencing death, death threats, accidents, amputation? His coming back to himself – hailing the taxi? His intentions: the hotel, to relive the journey he anticipated? Indefinite?
5.The gallery of characters: the taxi driver, the girl on the bus and her story, the two young men and their plans, the man with the cart and horse, Antonio, the fat woman, the doctor, his daughter, Sebastian, the innkeeper and his wife?
6.The overall impact of the film? As drama, as artistic? The search for identity, meaning in life? Death?
