I saw this at a Jewish film festival with the director personally introducing it. He said he likes the audience to have a part in the artistic process of the movie by filling in their own ideas in the deliberately left blanks in the movie. I think it's OK to have audiences think a bit about aspects of a movie but this one had so many huge gaps and plot contradictions that my brain hurt at the end and it was just a confusing irritating experience. From near the start where the whole question of what the couple did instead of traveling to Venice as planned is left unanswered, to the middle where synagogue scenes are shown which lead nowhere, to the end which is apparently supposed to give some sort of emotional catharsis, the movie is a disjointed mass of confusion. The male lead gives a one expression performance throughout - morose bewilderment. In relation to this hotchpotch of fragments I can only echo his feelings.
Review of Hotel Harabati
