It sounds like an exercise for a screenwriting or
stage-writing workshop. Imagine a motel
room un unnamed city, and write different short plays about the couples who
stay there. Write what you don’t know.
Michael Knowles did just that, and then aimed to turn one of
the five short episodes into a short film. But he went on and did all five,
producing a quintet (a set of integrated short films in one setting) in the
spirit of “The Decalogue” from the 80s.
The lodging unit is “Room 314”. While the 2005 film (now from Vanguard)
played a lot in New England and the location of the Fairfield Inn remains
unnamed, I get a certain feel that the film was shot in Texas, perhaps in
Austin. I wonder how many motel rooms like this one I have rented in my life when "on the road" and what other stories each room could tell.
The first couple is “Nick
and Stacey” (13 min) with Matthew Del
Negro and Joelle Carter. Nick, who is
quite handsome, is actually a pretty wholesome football player, and good
looking, and would never drug a girl. Nevertheless, Stacey can’t remember how
she wound up in the room, and Nick remembers she was good.
Now “Harry” (16 min, Matthew Laurence) has taken the room
alone to break his AA regime, and his wife Gretchen (Sarah Bennett) has
followed him there, with an intervention that may save him from suicide.
“Jack and Kathy” (22 min) intend a physical reunion, and we
gradually learn each is married, to someone else. Michael Knowles (the writer and director) and
Robin Myhr play the parts. Jack says he is a huckster who can sell anything to anyone. "People are inately cheap. They have no thoughts of their own" he says. He comes right out of the comedy about sales culture, "100 Mile Rule", with its mantra, "always be closing."
“Matt and Tracey” (10 min, Todd Swenson and Monique Vukovic)
come to the room already in the midst of some bizarre role-playing game. You gradually notice some physical
disfigurements with shocking effect:
Todd’s hand and wrist look burned, and Tracey seems mottled. Tracey starts making threats after admitting
she’s working. I’m not sure what gives
here, although I could guess. I’ve never
seen anything like this in a gay male film that I can recall. But I once, in the 1970s, had a “confrontation”
with a friend who wanted to impress me that what I saw wasn’t everything. I can now imagine how Knowles could craft my
own incident into a film (but it’s not in just one location).
“David and Caly” (about 35 min, the longest piece, with
Michael Mosley and Jennifer Marlowe) has a couple pretty much starting over,
but then really going all the way, in a climax the depicts real heterosexual
passion of which I am not personally capable.
The official site is here.
The film has played widely in smaller film
festivals around the country.
Picture: Hotel in Ontario (probably Ottawa) where my parents stayed around 1942, estate picture.
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