Meet Mr K: he’s a travelling magician searching for a place to stay for the night, performing for crowds that don’t seem to care that he can, quite literally, pull things out of thin air. At the nearest accommodation, he meets a slightly grumpy hotel reception lady (who informs him that a television set will be an extra charge), who directs him to his room — only for him to find a strange, old man under his bed, a member of the cleaning staff in his closet and a full marching band emerging from the walls of the establishment. Such is the beginning of Mr. K [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
interview : Tallulah H. Schwab et Cris…
fiche film], the already very action-packed sophomore film by Dutch-based Norwegian writer-director Tallulah H Schwab (selected in the 2014 Berlinale Generation Kplus section with Confetti Harvest [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film]), who turns to the surreal with her latest work. This is perhaps one of the boldest, most eccentric films that has made its premiere in the Platform section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

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Acclaimed character actor Crispin Glover is perfectly cast in the role of Mr K — an unsubtle nod to Franz Kafka — tumbling (sometimes literally) between sympathetic Joe and oratorial leader, joined by several delightfully oddballish women played by Sunnyi Melles, Fionnula Flanagan and Dearbhla Molloy. Quickly, Mr K finds he cannot escape the hotel, giving up and, to a certain extent, embracing the absurdity of it all, discovering the community embedded inside. He finds some camaraderie with a kitchen worker named Anton (Jan Gunnar Røise), who has (probably) never left the hotel since he entered and whose greatest desire is to be promoted to being an egg whisker. Within a hotel that hides more than a few secrets (a seemingly “Mary Poppins” building that contains multitudes of endless corridors within it), Mr K grows restless, not quite the straight man but also someone refusing to accept the reality of the hotel. It’s Wonka if it were set in Wonderland, with MC Escher-inspired staircases present from the very start, and with full-to-the-brim production design by Maarten Piersma and Manolito Glas.

Calling a work “Kafkaesque” is easy - even if its protagonist doesn’t inexplicably find themselves waking as a gigantic cockroach - but living up to that label is harder. However, Schwab very competently takes up this task, creating a sometimes Charlie Kaufmann-esque world with a tad less deadpan and a bit more fun (and horror), driven by upbeat and slightly eerie contemporary orchestral music by Stijn Cole. Granted, this film doesn’t satisfy cravings for a logical adventure: Mr. K asks us to suspend constant cinematic intellectualising and simply accept that one might not understand everything (or anything) - but maybe you’re better off that way.

The film also acts as a pointed but not entirely didactic social allegory. Why is Mr K promoted so quickly within the hotel’s nepotistic, networked job scheme, and why is our protagonist so intent on being the “liberator” of its permanent residents from a so-called endless nightmare? After first rejecting the label, he finds solace in the idea, to the dismay of those within. The film undoubtedly will surprise you until the very end, even if you have no idea what’s going on. Interpretations are a dime a dozen. Why not create your own?

Mr. K is a co-production between Lemming Film (Netherlands), A Private View (Belgium), Take 1 (Norway) and The Film Kitchen (Netherlands). LevelK is managing its international sales.