HOTEL MEINA

Italy, 2007, 110 minutes, Colour.
Benjamin Sadler, Ursula Bushhorn, Ivana Lotito, Buse Butz.
Directed by Carlo Lizzani.

Hotel Meina is a story of World War II, of the German occupation of northern Italy, of Jews taking refuge on the Swiss border. The hotel is a resort but also a refuge.

The film shows a group of Jewish families, bewildered by what was happening, hearing rumours of the concentration camps, eventually told they are going there-only to be secretly shot and their bodies bound and dropped into Lago Maggiore. The film also focuses on the management of the hotel- a Turkish family.

The Germans are presented in the usual way, the commander being an ideological Nazi, disciplinarian with his men, cruel in his killing of the Jews, lascivious in his approaches to a German visitor. The German visitor herself has to keep up Nazi appearances but is actually helping in the escape of a professor to Switzerland as well as aiding in an attempt to help the Jews escape.

The film is conventional, classical in its making, an attention to detail, the locations, close ups on characters, romantic interactions, and the sense of tragedy.

It was directed by Carlo Lizzani at the age of 84, a veteran Italian director of a range of films from documentaries, spaghetti westerns, features and television work.

1.The ever-popularity of World War Two stories? Jewish stories? The few Italian stories of the war in looking at it in retrospect? The perspective on the 40s? Impact at the beginning of the 21st century?

2.The director, his age, his style, classical? Italian and emotional? Close-ups, tensions, the musical score and the themes for different characters?

3.The title, the focus on the hotel, the hotel for holidays, a resort, a refuge, occupied by the German forces, the Jewish refugees, the Aryan visitors? The action in the hotel? The symbolic nature of the hotel?

4.The location photography at Lago Maggiore, in the 40s, the look, the beauty, the style of the hotel, the lake itself?

5.1943: the radio announcement of the armistice, the rejoicing, Mussolini in Germany, urging the Italians to fight, allied with Germany and Japan? The German occupation, not retreating? The Jewish refugees in Italy, the stories of the camps? Italy and Milan bombed by the Allies? The tragedy in Italy until 1944?

6.Noa, swimming, imagining Julian – and the reality at the end?

7.The Turkish family, running the hotel, taken by the Germans for interrogation, allowed back, hosting the guests, Noa and her work, the other members of the staff? The plan for the escape, the basement, the failure of the attempt? The family itself escaping, on the boat?

8.The different families, the Jewish group, Julian and his family, parents, grandfather, the younger brothers and sisters? The man whose wife was Jewish, the old, the afraid, their life before the war? Refugees? Singled out by the reading of the list, segregated on the fourth floor, having to make do, getting out when the Germans did the forced march, going back into the room? The fear, the plan for the escape? Trying to contact Florence? The help of Signora Melloni? Taken in small groups, seeing them bound and put into the lake? The final shooting of Julian and his family?

9.The Aryans at the hotel, the husband’s grief for his Jewish wife? Signora Melloni, her help, the risks?

10.The Germans themselves, occupying the hotel, assembling the guests, reading out the list, segregating the Jews, relegating them to the fourth floor? Kressler and his manner, ideological Nazi? His attitude towards Mrs Bern? The approach, the attack? The men carousing – and the forced march to Stresa and back? The second in charge, callous? The announcements in German, the member of the staff translating – and his own anti-Semitism?

11.Kressler, the callous killings of the Jews? Finally seeing it on the lakeside? Mrs Bern, her trapping Kressler after his advances? Her decision not to shoot him?

12.Mrs Bern, seeming Nazi, the consul’s help, the border, getting the professor out of Italy to the border, at the border with the guards? The Resistance, Noa helping? The signal – and the failure of the escape of the Jews?

13.The boat, the Turkish family, their going to safety – but the jolt with the dead bodies in the water? Julian and his family running, their being shot?

14.Noa imagining all the dead people in the water, their appearance underwater? The pathos for the ending of the film?

15.The postscript, the courts in Germany – and the technicality whereby the guilty verdict was not upheld?