Hotel Monterey

This article is about the 1972 silent film directed by Chantal Akerman. For the historic hotel in Virginia, see Monterey Hotel.

Hotel Monterey is a 1972^[2][3] American silent documentary Structural film directed by Chantal Akerman.^[4] It is Akerman's first feature film.

Hotel Monterey
Directed by	Chantal Akerman
Written by	Chantal Akerman
Produced by	Chantal Akerman
Cinematography	Babette Mangolte
Edited by	Geneviève Luciani
Release date	11 June 1989 (1989-06-11) (USA) [1]
Running time	62 minutes
Countries	Belgium USA
Language	Silent

In 2013, Akerman introduced Hotel Monterey, along with two other films, La Chambre and News from Home at the 11th annual "Save and Project" film series at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Synopsis

The film consists of a series of silent long takes shot in a hotel in New York City. Shots are meticulously staged to create visual patterns and optical illusions as the film slowly explores several different parts of the hotel, ranging from austere and claustrophobic basement corridors to hotel rooms—some occupied, some not—to skylines of neighboring building roofs and water towers shot from the rooftop.

Location

The hotel, located at 215 West 94th Street in Manhattan, opened in 1914 as the Hotel Apthorp. In 1916, the name changed to Hotel Monterey, the name it retained until 1976. By 2008, it had become Days Hotel, part of the Days Inn/Quality Inn chain.^[5]

Release

The Criterion Collection released it through their Eclipse series in 2010, as part of a set titled Chantal Akerman in the Seventies that included four feature films Akerman directed in the 1970s as well as a number of short films,^[6] and again in 2024 as part of the set Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978.^[7]