 PAESE SERA – July 22nd 1978What is Bernard Weber doing this evening? “I do not know what I’ll be doing this evening. I like improvising, even if in Rome the maximum that can be done is to go to dinner with friends. In fact I’m gaining weight. Perhaps I’ll remain at the hotel. -How sad. “You say that because you do not know my hotel. I’ve been living there for two and a half years”. -What’s so special about it? “Everything! The atmosphere, people, the rooms: Imagine, none of which is the same as the other in size or furnishing”. -I don’t think it’s right to open all the rooms. “I would never do such a thing. The fact is that in these two and a half years, I’ve traveled a lot and everytime I returned they gave me a different room”. -Haven’t you ever thought of renting an apartment? “I couldn’t. Living in Rome isn’t easy for a foreigner: this hotel has been my island, the place of my human experiences…”. -In a word, your mother. “…and it’s also the star of my first film, that will be projected in the next few days at the Taormina review”. -What’s it called? “The same: Hotel Locarno”. -You’ve mentioned that you’re a foreigner. Are you Swiss by any chance? “I was born in Geneva, but lived in Zurich until I went to America to make movies. I met Fellini and came to Rome”. -What’s the movie about? “What I’ve seen in the hotel over the past two and a half years. I had to adapt he scenario a little bit to suit the actors I could be using”. -Who are they? “Some are Italian, others American, Austrian, English, Swiss, French and there’s also an Australian”. -Haven’t you brought some confusion to the hotel transforming it into a set? You must have moved around or drove the customers to flee. “That wasn’t necessary. My plan was to shoot one room per day”. -And the owner? “The management collaborated with enthusiasm. When we filmed in the hall they made the clients use the service entrance”. -I have to say, that’s a rather good service. |
| L’ECO DELLA STAMPA – July 20th 1978 The most ‘invited’ film is “Hotel Locarno” It is perhaps the most invited film at festivals of the end of this season: In a few days it will be viewed at Taormina (in the “new film” category), then at Locarno, Montreal and Tehran. The draft is about “HOTEL LOCARNO” which a young Swiss director, Bernard Weber, has entirely plotted and filmed in a small Roman hotel, Hotel Locarno of via dell’oca (via della penna), a few steps from Piazza del Popolo and entirely filmed without editing. This low budget film (approximately 150 million Lira) has a spirit that reminds what carried to affirmation the “nouvelle vague” at the end of the 50’s and with a similar structure to “GRAN HOTEL”, The famous film starring Greta Garbo on the background of a hotel that was formed of tragicomedy interlaced with humor during the passage of its various characters. The cast includes Robert Bara, Ofelia Meyer, Ines Byass, Roberto Bonanni. Director of photography Massimo di Venanzo, son of the unforgettable Gianni di Venanzo. Musical score by Renato Zero. |
| IL TEMPO – July 29th 1978 Small experiences and “black comedy” Still from the “NEW FILM WEEK”, from Switzerland, Hotel Locarno of Bernard Weber. Hotel Locarno is perhaps one of the most invited films at the moment to international festivals: After Taormina, in fact it will be viewed at Locarno, then Montreal and therefore Tehran. Weber, a twenty six year old Swiss debuts as director and producer. The film, printed without editing, costed a little over one hundred million Lira (but “it was not easy getting hem…” confesses Weber). Weber who lives in Italy for some years now, was Fellini’s voluntary assistant, in Casanova he was a “Film Division” student of “School of the Arts” of New York. His mother, who has worked for 15 years with Le Corbusier, is owner of a museum in Zurich with permanent exhibition of works of the famous architect (who furthermore, has constructed it) and with an activity turned essentially towards urban planning and the atmosphere. The film gathers actors of seven nationalities: People who filmed with him because of friendship or almost for fun, torn a bit here and there on the various sets; one of the outstanding actresses is Milena Vukotic; music by Renato Zero, director of the photography, also here at his debut, is Massimo di Venanzo, son of a famous operator of the industry. A simple, fresh but above all authentic film. It shows the small world of Hotel Locarno, a Roman hotel that really exists, in Via dell’oca, a few steps from Piazza del Popolo. Established in 1925 by a Swiss. The small hotel accommodates a collection of samples of humanity rich of shatters, intellectual groups, small speculators, solitary women, journalists and writers of passage, actors and directors. Bernard Weber constantly inhabits you (the staff of the hotel, director on top, has participated in the filming). "I have seen this small hotel as a place of shelter from the external world – says Weber - and have concentrated the situations in seventeen personalities. But I did not want to concentrate on a particular character, preferring to leave space to the spectators’ fantasy to let them continue or even conclude the stories that I have designed. The stories are authentic, even if mediated from the imagination. Life experiences, even if hardly pointed out, in a human dimension - sometimes amusing, sometimes ironic, grotesque, pathetic - that today’s rhythm of society, as it appears in the film, tends to suffocate, to eliminate". |
| XXXI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL –
August 9th 1978 “Hotel Locarno”: Finally a film that takes man’s side "Hotel Locarno" is the tender and moral story, not moralistic, of events of a hotel situated in the center of Rome. Director is the Genevan Bernard Weber. It’s a "grand hotel" of the poor, where a desperate collection of human samples drags its solitude, its struggle of living between expedients and frustrations: there’s the fortune-teller, the young actress, the night porter, the unknown writer that goes on hunger strike, hoping that someone might notice him, the western film actor at Cinecittà, two old con-men who the management of the hotel does not drive away to avoid the scandal of the police’s participation, the shoe trader, the admiral living in a fantasy world, the shining and banal politician... Quick in portraying and affectionate in proposing with irony his solidarity towards this genuine even if bankrupt world, the author reveals talents of uncommon humanity that seem to be constant of the Swiss cinematographic world, at least of that in the French language. But the truth of the guests of the hotel is troubled by speculation. The young German Robert organizes a combination between the hotel (the director is much willing to get rid of the old guests) and a tourist agency of his country. The tourists arrive and therefore the old guests - that are a band of friends, ingenuous and dreamers - are invited to leave without compliments. The writer ends at the lunatic asylum, the suitcases of the two old ones are thrown outside of the room, the others see the increase of their marginalization. But before the ruin of mass tourism, to the mercanrism of the innkeeper, the inability of Robert to comprehend the truth, the "deserted" group is united and moved to the counterattack. The end is but ambiguous: Hotel Locarno is a film marking the past glories of the hotel. There are some defects, but the cut is intelligent. The characters’ portrait is sure, the dialogue is amusing. The greater prize of the film is the ability to describe in simple and nearly sincere manner the every day truth. Finally, in these first days of projection, a film that is of the man’s part. |
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