Mr. K
The diners on the floor ignoring his act, the illusionist on stage receives no applause, Mr. K once again accepting his disappointing lot and moving on to another venue, arriving at the dilapidated and crumbling hotel at the end of a cracked road, the façade overgrown with vegetation, climbing the broad steps to the reception where he enquires about a room and requests a morning call so as to make his next engagement at a nearby café.
His plans are not to be, however, the rooms and winding corridors of the unnamed establishment seeming to rearrange themselves as he seeks to leave in the morning, the hotel having a stated policy of no unruly behaviour, no animals, no smoking, no prostitutes, no running or jumping but also apparently offering no exit, Mr. K coming to realise that the staff and guests, with only a vague, shifting distinction between which are which, are prisoners as much as he.
A paradox of no end and no escape, Mr. K is written and directed by Tallulah H Schwab and sees We Have Always Lived in the Castle’s Crispin Glover as the titular gentleman, one character in search of an exit as the rest of the ensemble go about their manic business, elderly sisters Ruth and Sara (The Others’ Fionnula Flanagan and Four Mothers’ Dearbhla Molloy) content to stay in their room directly above his, while artiste Gaga (Triangle of Sadness’ Sunnyi Melles) throws extravagant costumed parties for her entourage in her extravagant boudoir.
The pounding from within the walls preceding the emergence of a full band, the brass section in the lead, the flickering of the lights prompting the release of whole generations of thieving children who then vanish into a cupboard, in the absurd and abstract nightmare Mr. K’s own eccentricities do not seem so out of place, but if there is any order to be enforced in the chaos it is that he must start at he bottom, working his way up from the kitchens.
His only friend fellow chef Anton (The Thing’s Jan Gunnar Røise), when prematurely elevated to whisking a rift develops between them, amplified by Mr. K’s increasing determination to escape, seemingly the only one aware that the dimensions of the hotel are unstable, but built on shifting foundations of whimsy as unreliable as sand the film fast becomes weary, as directionless as the meanderings in the anonymous corridors of peeling wallpaper, and like an egg the chances are that he will be beaten.
More ingeniously executed and so more enjoyable, where Dave Made a Maze had purpose and joyfully deadly traps to avoid, while Mr. K has a stated goal it also has no idea how to get their or what to do in the interim, repetitive and unclear in what it wants to say other than the frustrating and increasingly inescapable truth that people resent and refuse to cooperate with anyone who wishes to help them, the masses sabotaging the efforts of the only man trying to save them along with himself.
Glasgow Film Festival continues until Sunday 9th March
