Review for Love Hotel

Introduction

I think Love Hotels are a peculiarly Japanese phenomenon. Certainly the idea of taking advantage of a hotel for a romantic or purely sexual liaison is universal, but creating a whole off-shoot of the hospitality sector for that purpose implies a degree of organisation, planning and formality that seems typically Japanese. Rooms that are kitted out with all sorts of erotic paraphernalia, often themed in their gaudy decorations, and paid for by the hour aren’t what you’d expect from your local Premier Inn. This story, the last of this summer’s Directors Company releases from Third Window Films, and the third Shinji Somai film from that ten year project begins and ends in one of these idiosyncratic hotels, but is less about the location than it is about the people who encounter each other there.


Muraki got into trouble when he couldn’t repay loan sharks, and they decided to take an instalment out of his wife’s body, while he was forced to watch. The only way he could think of dealing was to hire a prostitute, use her, then kill her and then kill himself. But when they finally meet at a love hotel, he’s unable to complete his plan, and runs away instead.


Two years later, Muraki is working as a taxi driver having divorced from his wife to protect her while he works to pay off his debt. And then one day he meets the prostitute again...

Picture

Love Hotel gets a 1.85:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on this disc, with DTS-HD MA 2.0 Japanese with optional English subtitles. The image is clean and crisp, with good colour, but it is very much of its era, when it comes to grain, and especially contrast. It’s noticeable early on that dark detail is a little lacking. Also, this is a film which conforms to Japanese entertainment sensibilities when it comes to sexual content, and a few times blurry ellipses appear to spare audience blushes. The audio is fine, the dialogue clear and the subtitles accurately timed and free of all typos except one at around 1:13:30, where ‘anything’ is spelled as ‘anythnig’

Extras

The disc boots to an animated menu, and you’ll find the following extras.

Trailer (1:31)
Minori Terada & Koji Enokido Talk Event (18:06)
Shinji Somai at the Directors Company – Video Essay by Josh Slater-Williams (14:44)
Jasper Sharp Commentary

Conclusion

It’s notable that this film begins with a trigger warning, and there are certainly some parochial attitudes that wouldn’t fly today in entertainment, certainly not without enough narrative and character development to put those attitudes in context. Love Hotel is Shinji Somai’s crack at making a Roman Porno with a strong dramatic core to it. Perhaps seeing it through the lens of softcore fantasy will make the questionable elements more palatable than seeing the film as a more dramatic exercise.


Actually, Love Hotel feels more an exercise in mood and atmosphere, rather than a narrative. It’s an exploration of two brief encounters, beginning with a fractious encounter between a businessman and a prostitute, albeit a businessman trying to deal with his world falling apart in the most self destructive and vindictive way he can think of. Having witnessed his wife’s humiliation, he’s been left feeling impotent and with a misogynistic rage, one he plans to take out on a prostitute before committing a murder-suicide. And then it’s Yumi who turns up to the hotel, and he only gets to the first part of his plan, that of using Yumi, but when it comes to the next part of his plan, he runs away.


Two years later, he’s a taxi driver, and Yumi has got a full time, respectable job when they encounter each other again. The introduction to the film really was from Muraki’s perspective, and Yumi was just a random encounter for him. The story continues two years later, still from Muraki’s perspective, but we learn a lot more about Yumi this time, and the story really revolves around her, and Muraki’s growing obsession for her. While that night marked a low point in Muraki’s life, it was a turning point for Yumi, and it turns out a sexual awakening, which has impacted her life since then, even though her career path seems more respectable now. It only seems respectable though, and it turns out that there are issues that need resolving as Muraki and Yumi go down the path to completing what they had begun two year previously.


Love Hotel had my attention for the duration, but the film didn’t quite click with me. It’s a mood, more of a poem than a story, and quite unsatisfying if you’re looking for something conventional, with a beginning, middle and end. It’s more of a brief encounter, although this isn’t exactly Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.

Love Hotel is available from Arrow Video, from Terracotta, and from mainstream retailers.