Hotel Silence | The hotel man

By bringing to the screen Hotel Silenceaccording to Goldby Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir, Léa Pool sets the bar very high for filmmakers who want to adapt the works of the Icelandic novelist.

Recently divorced, Jean Létourneau (Sébastien Ricard), 52, no longer has the will to live. Without warning his mother who is losing her independence (Louise Turcot), his daughter (Cassandre Latreille) and his friend (Paul Ahmarani), he takes a one-way ticket to a country struggling to recover from a war. In his modest luggage, the handyman stores a drill and a hook.

At the Silence hotel, run by Zoran (Jules Porier), son of the owner living abroad, and his cousin Ana (Lorena Handschin), who is raising her son Adam (Sacha Semis Barthes) alone, mute since the end of war, Jean meets Kristina (Irène Jacob), a war reporter, and the enigmatic tenant of room 9 (Sasha Samar). Soon, Jean learns from the owner of the local restaurant (Igor Ovadis) that the villagers have heard of the man with the drill’s talents for renovation. If the rest of the story reserves few surprises and may seem naive, the fact remains that it offers beautiful moments of humanity and hope.

In Gold, a novel by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir which haunts the reader for a long time, the young owner of the Silence hotel restored piece by piece the mosaics of the thermal baths hidden under the building. In Hotel Silenceadaptation ofGold, Zoran works to renovate the hotel’s cinema room in order to bring images of the past back to life. Through this judicious choice, inspired by the majestic hotel Le Belvédère du Rayon Vert in the French commune of Cerbère, Léa Pool herself seems to construct an original work from the most beautiful fragments of her films.

Liberating word

Thus we recognize throughout this story on resilience, reconstruction and transmission of the motifs explored in particular in The woman from the hotelwhere a suicidal woman met a film crew, in Headlongwhich depicted the romantic torments of a war reporter, and in Anne Tristerwhere she dealt with exile, mourning and childhood wounds.

Very personal, adaptation ofGold also proves to be very faithful, the director having found the perfect balance between respect for the original work and the desire to make it her own.

Certainly, Quebec replaces Iceland, the names of the characters have been changed, but the power of the simple and raw words that Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir uses to describe the trauma of war remains intact in Hotel Silence. Having chosen precisely not to resort to flashbacks, Léa Pool transforms Gold in a moving choral film where the liberating words of each person, collected by Jean, steeped in empathy, become the proud guardian of traditions and memories, even the most painful, as well as the solemn promise of a better future. Faithful to the dialogues of the novel, the filmmaker infuses them with a Durassian force thanks to an interpretation without embellishment, almost detached, which leaves plenty of room for the viewer’s imagination.

The careful photography of Denis Jutzeler (Double sentence, And at worst we will get married). Cradling these meaningful images, the soundtrack with Slavic accents by Mario Batkovic, which rehabilitates the accordion, gives Hotel Silence a dimension that is both nostalgic and timeless.

Carrying the film on his strong shoulders, Sébastien Ricard perfectly embodies this man of few words who is gradually regaining a taste for life. At her side, newcomer Lorena Handschin has a freshness and a mischievous charm which make her the great revelation ofHotel Silence.

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Drama

Hotel Silence

Léa Pool

Sébastien Ricard, Lorena Handschin, Jules Porier

1h40

8/10