Quintessentials: Hotel Chevalier

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0Z4Vzw0yo8I
Hotel Chevalier, 2007, 13 minutes
Directed by Wes Anderson

Hotel Chevalier depicts Jason Schwartzman's character obviously still not over his ex-girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman. She insists on visiting him in the hotel, which does not help his attempt at getting over her.

I had heard about this short awhile ago, but I only just saw it at the end of Summer. I love Anderson's features, and I thought this short captured the character's emotions much like his other features do. I thought the colors of the sets made the short aesthetically pleasing to the audience, and made me appreciate the detail that went into creating the set. I thought the chemistry between Schwartzman and Portman was believable and they did a great job acting in this short. (If only I'd known about the iTunes free download!)

As Kelly predicted about other viewers, I, too, was interested in watching this mainly because I was on a Natalie Portman binge and was attempting to watch her filmography. While this film was posted during the Potpourri week, I think it would've worked as a film for the week on star-driven shorts. It's true, most people do want to watch this either because they love Anderson, Portman, Schwartzman, or all three. (I'm assuming if you like Anderson you're probably used to seeing Schwartzman's face.)

Earlier in this post I mentioned the set. To me, I don't think the class has really focused on the aesthetics of the shorts we've looked at very much. While the acting, cinematography, etc. of a short are important. I find it very interesting to look at the tiny details within a movie's atmosphere. Granted, we don't have all the time in the world to examine things that most viewers would miss, I think looking at set design is also important in getting something from a film.