Sélect Hôtel

In the Select Hotel the corridor walls have striped wallpaper, like the bars of a prison. The rooms are no larger than cells. In Paris it is the last resort for people with little money. The hotel inhabitants walk the streets in silence, sell their bodily warmth for a handful of crumpled bills and are consumed by their hunger for cheap kicks. Kicks that briefly make them forget for a moment the misery of their ruined lives and dream of a better life. Nathalie and her brother Tof try to keep their heads above water in this desolation. They live among transvestite whores and professional metro beggars. After Tof threatens cleaner Pierre with a stolen gun, Pierre follows the young crook and finds himself in an underworld of sex and decline. He is mad about the blond Nathalie. Slowly but surely he is drawn deeper into the nightlife.This self-assured, moving feature début by producer/writer/director Laurent Bouhnik sketches a subtle picture of people on the fringe of society. The actors play the wretches with their many maladies, quirks and complexes convincingly. With a multitude of camera styles (extreme close-ups, subjective camera) Bouhnik involves the viewer in the drama. Or, as Piers Handling (Toronto Catalogue) described it succinctly: ‘Henry Miller meets Charles Bukowski by way of Rimbaud.’