![]() ![]() “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” opens in U.S. Someone’s got to make a stand for the last vestiges of the soul of New York City, and “Dreaming Walls” beautifully captures their fight and their dreams. When Gabriela Madera graduated from Fordham University in 2009, she was eager to leave the family nest in Washington Heights for a place of her own in the vibrant Upper Manhattan neighborhood that she has always called home. Still, in remaining present, with the past and future swirling feverishly, the film is a deeply poignant and moving love letter to those that remain, who “rage, rage, against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas once wrote. It’s not a complete history of the hotel, though history is palpable, and if there is an indictment of the landlords renovating the hotel and putting the residents into this precarious situation, it only comes up when the subjects mention it. “Dreaming Walls” capably captures this place and its current residents, “people who are the remnants of another time in New York,” as Cory puts it, but if the filmmakers have an agenda beyond that goal, it’s unclear. Otherwise, we are simply taking in the past and present of Chelsea Hotel, and wondering about its future. We discover Merle’s full name when she pages through old programs, but there are only two formal interviews where residents identify themselves and offer commentary, with performance artist Rose Cory and video director–artist Steve Willis. We simply watch and listen to the residents, taking in who they are, but not even their full names (there are no titles or chyrons). 6 Documentaryĭuverdier and van Elmbt take an observational approach. ![]() She moves about the space with her walker, visiting friends like sculptor Skye Ferrante, who renders her face in wire, or Zoe Serac Pappas and Nicholas Pappas, who have her over for dinner and lively debate about the state of the renovations and the future of the Chelsea.įussing Over Camera Angles Is a Trump Family Tradition in New Trailer for Alex Holder’s Jan. Floating through the lobby, pushing down corridors, effortlessly, ghostlike, we follow our tour guide of sorts, Merle Lister-Levine, an elderly choreographer and dancer. The camera beckons us inside these scaffolded walls, walls that breathe, dream, remember and disintegrate. They have stayed during the years-long renovation to update and renovate the hotel, a process that has upended their lives in the process, either out of a stubborn impulse to fight for their space and history or a lack of anywhere else to go. The latest to set up shop in the on-the-rise neighborhood is Bar Bastion, a sleek new cocktail bar from Michelin-star restaurant group, The Bastion. But this film is not about the celebrities who lived, died, and stayed within these walls, but rather the non-famous residents, the ones who still live there, living a true artist’s life, holding the memories. “Dreaming Walls” espouses Leonard Cohen’s memorable refrain, “I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,” the past and present bleeding together, the filmmakers seamlessly blending archival footage with contemporary cinematography. ‘Fire of Love’ Film Review: Married Scientists Devote Their Lives to Each Other, and to Volcanoes ![]()
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