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Motel (The)
R1 - America - Palm Pictures Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (3rd April 2007). |
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The Film
 Coming of age films are a hard sell, they can either be poignant portraits of young adult hood or painful reminders of puberty. "The Motel" is the latter, it's certainly painful but not in a bad way. It simply reminds us how hard it was growing up, how difficult it was to connect with the opposite sex when you're young and developing, it beautifully shows one boy's journey from adolescence into young adulthood amid a background of restrictive family values and a sleazy motel that charges by the hour. Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffery Chyau) lives and works at his family's hourly-rate motel. The motel is located in a suburban bi-way. The motel sees all kinds of guests from prostitutes taking their tricks to down on their luck people just trying to survive. His family film is very typically Chinese, his mother, Ahma (Jade Wu) is overbearing and requests discipline. She is job focused and wants her son to stop dreaming of silly things like writing and focus on school and his job of cleaning up the motel rooms. Ernest is misunderstood by his family and adding to that daily pressure is having to face puberty. Ernest likes Christine (Samantha Futerman) but doesn't know how to get her, being friends, he wants more. One day Ernest encounters Sam (Sung Kang), a Korean businessman who has been kicked out of his home by his wife and is entirely self-destructive. Sam and Ernest form a bond as Sam teaches the young boy about the rites of manhood in his effort to get Christine. For a debut film, director Michael Kang has done a great job in capturing the tone of the subject. Kang uses the location of the film to evoke a sense of depression, reflecting Ernest's personality or current state of affairs. This is perfectly matched by Jeffery Chyau's performance. For an unknown child actor his portrayal of Ernest is sincere and believable. The film is quite deliberately dry and slow in pace but never fails to entertain as Kang finds ways to inject humor into the scenes. This is especially evident with the interactions between Ernest and Sam and also the scene where the bully Roy (Conor J. White) threatens to punch him if he doesn't kiss his sister (Roy's sister, not Ernest's, that would just be weird and a little gross). They are moving and emotionally engaging without being creepy. Although this film lends a lot of focus on its characters and their relationships with each other the overall theme of this film is very much about growing up. Not just the agonizing face of puberty that Ernest encounters but Sam does some growing up as well, as his friendship with Ernest allows him to see what a mess he's made with his life. Meanwhile Ernest tries and continually struggles with his feelings for Christine which are honestly displayed in a scene where he takes her for a ride in his mother's stolen car. "The Motel" is not a film for everyone, it's an awkward comedy that finds ways to put a smile on your face, but this is not entirely maintained.
Video
Presented in a ratio of 1.78:1 this widescreen anamorphic transfer presents the film quite well considering this film was budgeted at around $250,000. This low budget independent film was shot on 35mm and the print is clean for the most part, a few print flaws can be seen in the opening credits such as a scratch and dirt. Sharpness is well balanced and the image is crisp as a result, colors are vivid, blacks bold and shadow detail is consistent for the most part but a few night scenes appear a bit flat. Never-the-less this is a decent effort from Palm Pictures.
Audio
Two tracks are included in English Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its 5.1 track, and I found that despite being a 5.1 track the majority of the sound was front heavy. This isn't a film that strives to achieve an aggressive surround experience but the lack of ambient and environmental surrounds have resulted in a track that has little depth. Dialogue and what little music that is featured in the film both come out clean and without distortion. There isn't anything technically wrong with this track it's just average. This film does not feature any optional subtitles, but there are a few scenes were Chinese is spoken and for those forced English subtitles appear.
Extras
First up is a feature-length audio commentary by the film's director Michael Kang and actors Jeffery Chyau and Sung Kang. This extra can be accessed via the set-up sub menu and not the extras menu, the track is rather chatty and moves at a steady pace. The participants provide a loose and light atmosphere as they joke about a few scenes and shooting a few funny moments. The director comments on shooting a low budget independent film and working with the largely unknown cast. It's mostly screen-specific, as they talks about the story, the characters and their relationships with each other. You get a sense of how much fun it was making this film as they share stories from the set. It's worth listening to especially considering the film is only 76 minutes long so it's not too overbearing. Next is "The Motel: Behind-the-Scenes" featurette which runs for 22 minutes 7 seconds. This clip takes a look at the pre-production process but focuses mostly on working with the cast, key members of the cast and crew tell us about their characters as we get a general behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film on location in New Jersey. Some interesting things that pop up are the delays the production faced because of rain, fire (the motel they shot at caught fire) and filming during a black-out. Following that are a series of 4 "Director's Picks" footage that includes behind-the-scenes material as the director takes a look at four of his favorite scenes, they include the following: - "Chicken Bones" which runs for 56 seconds, this is the scene where Ernest and Sam throw the chicken bones while sitting on his car as they improve some of the action. - "Baseball" which runs for 46 seconds, filming Ernest catching the ball repeatedly and tiring out the boy. - "Tree Falling" which runs for 48 seconds, Sam falls out of a tree, this was the last scene to be filmed and Sung ended up spraining his wrist. - "The Kiss" which runs for 1 minute 14 seconds, Ernest kisses Jesse in what is young Jeffery's first ever kiss. The disc also includes the film's original U.S. theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 2 seconds. DVD-ROM features can be accessed by your PC DVD drive and includes web links to the film's official site as well as the Palm Pictures web site. Rounding out the extras are a series of bonus trailers that include: - "Make Poverty History" spot which runs for 1 minute 2 seconds. - "Wondrous Oblivion" which runs for 2 minutes 4 seconds. - "Rolling Family" which runs for 1 minute 33 seconds. - "Clean" which runs for 2 minutes 17 seconds. - "I Trust You To Kill Me" which runs for 2 minutes 9 seconds.
Overall
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