Jean, a fifty-year-old gnawed by a feeling in his soul from which he no longer sees a way out, decides to fly to a country devastated by war with the aim of ending his life there, and protecting the her daughter from the consequences of her actions. In this anonymous land, he meets people who will move him, in the words of Léa Pool, “from solitary to united” and who will give new meaning to his existence.
Thus, by hearing the stories of Ana and Zoran, determined to breathe new life into the hotel they own, and by sharing the daily life of a little boy haunted by war, Jean will use his tools and his know-how in the service of a reconstruction which will heal both its scars and that of an entire village.
Even if it is an adaptation of a novel by the Icelandic Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Gold, 2018), Hotel Silence takes the viewer into familiar territory with regard to the world of Léa Pool. The film, which probes the inner wanderings that lead to rebirth, recalls some of his most intimate works, from The woman from the hotel (1984) to Bring me (1999) via Headlong (1988).
The result, although a little heavy-handed and a bit sentimental, still offers several moments of grace, carried, despite their clichéd nature, by the messages and good intentions that pave the story. Thus, the importance of encounter, of solidarity, of openness to the unknown gives rise here to beautiful introspections and welcome hope.
Adapting a literary work has its share of pitfalls. Léa Pool, however, never seeks to avoid difficulties, truncating the realism expected of cinema for a more abstract and symbolic proposition. The director chose, as was the case in the novel, to maintain the anonymity of the country where the action takes place and to mix the accents and origins of her actors to allow herself to maintain the dialogues in French; a common process in literature, which she transposes brilliantly.
She also deliberately leaves vague the intentions, the past and the sadness of Jean, the main character, with the objective, more or less successful, of avoiding hierarchizing suffering. It also shows, through subtext rather than through the staging of the action, the capital importance of women, who have gone, in just a few months, from weapons of war to pilots of the reconstruction of ‘a nation.
The story, which is intended to be inspiring and full of hope, is sometimes tricky. However, if Léa Pool chooses an agreed path to walk from the shadows towards the light, she does so with the eyes of an artist who has seen others, unflinchingly raising the irony that her story sows on her path. .
Thus, a journalist gently makes fun of this white man who has come to relieve boredom and feel useful in a country in ruins, while a young woman reprimands him for his paternalism, his indiscretion and his ignorance.
Supported by an invested and nuanced Sébastien Ricard and Lorena Handschin, images of great beauty and the captivating music of Mario Batkovic, Léa Pool finds in suffering the roots of our common humanity.