Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb. Today we are rerunning an episode that originally published three twenty two, twenty twenty four. It is Dead Mountaineers Hotel. This is a weird one. This is very thought provoking. If you haven't seen it, I recommend checking this movie out. Either way, we hope you enjoy our episode on Dead Mountaineer's Hotel.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb.
I am Joe McCormick.
So it's time to check another country off of the Weird House Cinema list. You know, we can imagine our global map and we're putting pens in the different countries that we've visited via the cinematic output of set Nation. This time we're going to Estonia and sorry, rants, we'll get to you with it.
That's right. Today we're going to be talking about the nineteen seventy nine Estonian Soviet sci fi detective film Dead Mountaineers Hotel, directed by Grigory Kromanov, based on a story by the brothers Boris and Arcati. Strugatsky, who also wrote the source material for another one of my favorite weird Soviet films, which is Tarkovsky's Stalker. In fact, that movie was released the same year as this movie. Both came out in nineteen seventy nine, so a big year for
the brothers Strugatsky. I had never seen Dead Mountaineer's Hotel before this past week. I was attracted to it after I saw some very intriguing stills online featuring weird sets full of mirrors and some very striking shot composition with interesting use of color. And then I read reviews characterizing this movie as a bizarre but generally quite well liked Eastern European film noir with subversive science fiction themes and
several heaping spoonfuls of what is going on? So this is the sort of pull toward the film was was amplified when I went to Videodrome and I saw the employees there had posted a recommendation on this film, so I decided that I had to get it check it out. So it was Estonian sci fi detective week for me. And you know, despite all of that, Prepper I was still incredibly surprised by this film I'll do a short synopsis of the setup, the sort of first third of
the movie. It is about a police inspector named Glebski working in some country in capitalist western Europe. Did they ever specify what country it is? I think it's unnamed.
I think it is unnamed. It's just miscellaneous European country, which is sometimes my favorite country to go to in cinema.
Right. So, he's a policeman working somewhere further western Europe, in some alpine region, and he is called to a remote ski lodge up in the mountains known as the Dead Mountaineers Hotel. But once he arrives, it seems he was summoned on a false alarm. The other guests at the hotel behave very strangely and something is not what
it seems. Then suddenly there is at the same time an avalanche cutting the guests off from the rest of the world and a murder putting Inspector Glebsky, sort of taking him out of vacation mode and putting him back into on duty mode.
Yeah, because initially he's like, well, it took me so long to get up here, and it's a little misty out I'm clearly going to have to spend the night here and drink something exactly. But then yeah, back on duty when the murder occur.
I'm gonna have to dance to some really good Estonian proud rock. Now at this point, I think we're gonna have to go ahead and deal with something, which is that this film has major surprises that develop across its run time, and it would be rob I think you'd agree, basically impossible for us to talk about this movie without spoiling its big twists.
Right right, And we were talking about this a little bit off Mike beforehand. This is not a film that is so dependent upon the twist that you cannot enjoy it. In fact, you might enjoy it a little bit more knowing the sort of territory you will get in.
I read a blog post somewhere online where the writer was reviewing the film and said that they thought that it actually worked better if you went in already knowing what the twist would be. I'm not sure about that, but that could be the case. I went in already knowing the twist and still greatly enjoyed the movie. But if you suspect that might not be the case for you, you want your chance to duck out and not know
what happens later in the film. Here's your moment. Let's do some spoiler avoidance, walk out music, flee and terror from the revelations to come.
Your mind is not ready, Your mind is not ready.
Your mind is okay. But here you are with us to know what happens later in the film. But you know, part of the difficulty is that even the genre designation of the movie spoils the twist because it is called like a neo noir or detective science fiction film, and there is nothing science fiction about the movie until the twist is revealed, which is that well, one part of the twist is not necessarily sci fi. It's more sort of crime thriller themed, and that is that some of
the hotel guests are secretly gangsters and or terrorists. I wasn't quite sure exactly what kind of criminal this is supposed to be. But then beyond that, some other hotel guests are robots, and yet other guests are aliens.
Yeah, yeah, And I have to add, like, knowing that we selected this for weird House Cinema, you might already suspect that there will be something speculative in the plot. But I also have to highlight that the movie is weird enough in its texture and its tone that I think we could have covered it even had it not involved robots in aliens.
Oh yeah, because people have pointed this out about especially like the sets and the music created very otherworldly atmosphere before any technically speculative plot elements are introduced, like this is a ski resort in the mountains, but it feels like a set from Blade Runner.
Yeah. Yeah. And then the score is very abstract and electronic. We'll get into that in a bit too, But all of this sort of you know, sets the board, and by the time aliens and robots come around, I have a feeling that even if you didn't know they were going to occur, they it would not feel completely out of left field. You would be like, oh, well, yeah, of course. I mean, a number of human beings have
to be robots and aliens. That's where I am in my worldview after experiencing this much of the film.
I mean, a lot of the characters are acting incredibly weird, and so it seems something would have to be up to explain the way they behave and the films I would say the film's themes don't fully come into focus until the final act, when, after the revelation of the presence of aliens and robots, the policeman Glebski is put in a position to think independently given new information, even unprecedented information, and he has to choose whether to blindly
charge ahead, deferring his individual judgment and performing his official duties, or to think for himself and act as a human being. And we see Glebsky really struggling with this choice. He feels very strongly pulled to just act out his official duties as a policeman, even if they don't really make sense in the scenario, and it would spell disaster for visitors from another world.
Yeah. Yeah, So the making of Retrospective feature at on the Blu Ray edition that we both watched more than that in a minute. It shed some interesting light on the production. So, first of all, just a bit of background, since we're dealing with Estonian cinema here. At the time Dead Mountaineer's Hotel was made, Estonia was the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. This is essentially what it was known as nineteen forty through nineteen forty one and then nineteen forty
four through around nineteen ninety one. The asterisk by that date I'll explain in a second. And while Estonia had its own distinct film, TV and theater scenes, there seems to have to a large extent been a shared ecosystem with Moscow based film production at the time. You know, you seem to have a very Soviet film bureaucracy in place governing the production of this film and other films
that were occurring throughout the than Soviet Union. For instance, composer sim Gruenberg talks about composing music for the film on the train back to Moscow, where he then would record in the same studio that like later in the day, another composer was going to be using to score nineteen seventy nine Stalker, a Soviet Russian production that we just referenced.
Oh okay, yeah, And so given this context, one thing that I've read about the film that makes it kind of interesting is that, despite its the weirdness, and I would argue subversiveness of the final product, this is a film that was made under, from what I understand, a heavy hand of censorship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The film was seemingly the product of very bureaucratic film production process. In some ways it does seems like it held it back, and we'll discuss examples of that, but it also meant that it seems like they had everything lined up when they were about to shoot, Like when they actually went out there, it was a pretty well oiled machine to a large extent, very streamline production.
But yeah, it seems like it maybe did limit and in case in other cases almost limited the creativity of the project as well.
I was reading about the making of the film in a piece by an Estonian film critic named Carlo Funk. It was an article published by the Estonian Film Institute, and Funk was sort of writing about how there were certain things you could do if you wanted to tell a certain kind of story under this environment, that you
could have more leeway with your storytelling. For example, setting it in the West rather than setting it like in Estonia or something allowed more freedom allegedly to depict characters as sort of like flawed and conflicted in their official duties.
Because you could you essentially be saying like this is the kind of potential depravity that can be going on elsewhere, but not within these four rides. Just to a quick cap on the note about Estonia. Estonia became I believe, the first of the then Soviet controlled countries to declare independence from Moscow and the Soviet Union, and by nineteen ninety one, I believe the sixth of September nineteen ninety one,
the Soviet Union recognized Estonian independence. Now key to all of this, of course, is the hotel, the Dead Mountaineer's Hotel, which we'll get into. We'll talk a lot about this hotel, and and you know, it's film, So you have exteriors and interiors at this place. And I think if you know anything about a filmmaking at all, you know that these don't have to necessarily match up. Sometimes the place where a film is shot the interiors, we are also
using the exteriors of set location. Sometimes you'll have the have exterior shots for a particular place in your film, and the inside of that place you're utilizing via another location or perhaps sets. So in this film, we have the exterior of the hotel, which does have its own kind of character. It has this kind of like boxy look that I quite like. It doesn't look completely rustic. It has sort of a modern flare to it.
Yeah, it is an asymmetrical architecture that does look like I don't know, some modern homes you would see that are like a you know, a rectangle rising up here and a slanted roof there. And it's not just like your standard sort of boxy resort hotel shape right right.
And of course it is very remote and surrounded by all of these snowy mountains and all very captivating. But instead of using this location or some other kind of like ski lodge location for the interiors, and instead of engaging in perhaps the kind of expected rustic or perhaps well worn interiors of an actual remote ski lodge, they said, no, no, no, this is a science fiction film. This film deals with
futuristic ideas. We need to have a futuristic set, and so they ended up building out these sets, and what we have is this highly stylized like black and mirrored interior. There's neon and the featurette on the disc describes this as all being very much in line with Estonian hyperrealism of the time period.
I don't know exactly what that is, but it's hyper something. It's yes, yeah, it it doesn't feel like a real hotel, like, it doesn't it does not at all suggest hospitality. Instead,
it is an environment that suggests mystery and doubt. And yet despite this, it does still have some of the features that can make a hotel or resort an exciting location for a mystery story, like the maze like nature of hallways and a hotel like that you never really understand like what part of the building you're in or which direction you're facing. You're just going around corners, and
this movie does. The sets do have that feeling. There's a kind of like confusing layout of the place and it almost suggests that it's like not physically plausible.
Yeah, and it sounds like the set itself had this kind of like maze like quality. They were talking about like there being lots of places that crew members could sort of hide and you know, have a drink or snack and so forth. And it was apparently quite a struggle to get everybody to be quiet for the for the shoot. But yeah, it was a pretty elaborate build.
It wasn't cheap and on the other end, and so I have to stress that it does not feel like a set in that it feels like a real place, like even though we are getting into this hyper realistic idea of what a remote ski lodge could be. It totally works within the context of the film, and you're never like, oh, look at this set, unless you know, unless I guess you're engaging in the film, you know,
outside of the film's context. But it's hard to imagine this film having the same impact or the same flavor at all if it were set in a more traditional or rustic ski lodge setting, you know, that kind of like well worn, perhaps not as easily maintained environment that some of us may have experienced in one form or
another in remote locations. It just I can't help but suspect that if that had been the case with this movie, even if it still had the terrific score, the terrific performances and this weird plot, this film might have been more easily forgotten and it wouldn't stand out as this kind of shining gem of Estonian film from this time period.
When you read people talking about this movie, they will end up saying a lot of things, but often the first thing they say is something about the striking visual nature of it.
Yeah. Absolutely, And we'll keep touching on more specific examples of that as we go. I'll also point out that the featurette described this as being part of the first and only, at least at the time that this featurette was produced, wave of Estonian science fiction of the mid
and late nineteen seventies. So there's like this brief blip where suddenly, and we'll touch on why some why this might have been the case where suddenly Estonian cinema was more concerned with science fiction and then it kind of dies off. Though just looking around a little bit, it looks like it looks like in recent years we have seen more Estonian science fiction come out. So it's not like, you know, Estonian creatives completely abandoned the idea of science fiction.
It's more a question of, like what was being funded, what was being produced, especially during this time period in which, like we already we discussed like there were a lot of bolts in place on what sort of films would see the light of day.
Okay, what's your elevator pitch for the movie?
It's simple, it's ski lodge madness, Estonian style.
In a world where the ski lodge is full of robots, one man will be a cop and not think too much about it.
Oh, I don't know, there's a lot of thinking. There's a lot of contemplative characters in this. Well, let's go ahead in here just a little bit of the trailer audio. This is from the I believe, the the Estonian trailer, so we're not going to play all of it, but maybe just a little bit to give you some flavor.
Milli Luma. All right, Now, before we go into the rest of the episode, let's talk about where you can watch this movie as well, especially if you want to watch it before listening to us talk about all the details of the plot. I can't speak for other regions, but currently over here it looks like the only way to stream it legit is perhaps via cultpic dot com looks like they have it. I'm not familiar with cultpick, but it pops up on letterbox as being a place
you can stream it. We watched it on the all region Blu ray from Camera Obscura, which also features an optional German dub. It has English subs and an interesting making op documentary that I've referred to already and I may refer to again.
Yeah, this was a good disc I liked it.
Yeah, Yeah, I had no problem playing it on an Xbox, for example, which sometimes isn't the case with international blu rays and so forth. All right, let's get into the people who made this film, starting at the top with the director, Grigory Kromanov, who lived nineteen twenty six through nineteen eighty four Estonian director and occasionally actor, best known internationally for this film, which was also his last of six films. I believe this was his only genre film.
Other films included the nineteen sixty nine nineteen seventy historic drama also described sometimes as a swashbuckler, the last.
Relet, Yeah, that's how I've seen it, described as sort of historical adventure.
Yeah, and then the screenplay. The screenplay is credited to Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky, who also wrote the novel upon which it is based. So they adapted their own novel here Okay. Arcatti lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen ninety one and Boris lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twelve, So they were Soviet Russian science fiction authors and brothers
who collaborated throughout their careers. Their best known novel is nineteen seventy two's Roadside Picnic, which Tarkovski adapted into the nineteen seventy nine film Stalker, which we already mentioned here. This movie is based on the nineteen seventy novel Dead Mountaineers Hotel, a detective story that veers increasingly into the into weird territory. Both of these books, by the way,
are widely available in English translation. I think you can even get audiobooks of them, so you know, they're they're they're available out there, along with other works of theirs and by the way, in two thousand and nine, the novel Dead Mountaineers Hotel was adapted into a point and click mystery video game. What Joe, I sent you the trailer for this and we were looking at this earlier.
Yeah, I watched this trailer for the game. I would not have imagined this would this adaptation would take place. That was a surprise for me, So, you know, it got me thinking about how oh Man, back in the day, I really did enjoy some of those those point and click adventure games like you know, The King's Quest and Maniac Mansion and things like that. This could be a lot of fun.
Yeah, yeah, and giving the source material, I guess it could be like I wonder, what's if you had a video game that was not only adapted from the source material, but based on this particular cinematic vision of said book, Like, what would it look like? What kind of choices would you have when you pointed and clicked on characters? You know, would you always have the option to drink and or smoke?
Hold on? I'm just thinking, was there at some point a Blade Runner point and click adventure game?
That sounds right. I never played any of the Blade Runner video games, but there certainly were some video games I think some PC game of Nah, I mean, it is a it seems like a genre of video game that is well adapted to you know, detective story and.
You click on the little clues and apply things to other things in the environment. But yeah, so that's an interesting So, as you said, this game was adapted from the novel, so it doesn't actually pull in a lot of the aesthetic choices from the movie adaptation. So I was looking at it and I was like, this doesn't seem familiar. Actually, m.
All right, So we have our inspector here, Inspector Peter Glebski, played by Oldest Poopsies who lived nineteen thirty seven through to the year two thousand. Yeah, this is one rugged detective. Like, we get a lot of close ups of this guy's face and it's perfect. It is the perfect like hard boiled detective's face. The lines, the almost like geologic texture to his face, you know, the depths of his eyes. Everything you want out of a noir detective who's having
troubled thoughts. This is the guy for you.
Yeah, he I mean we talk about square jaws on this show. Sometimes this is a jaw that is like fractally square. I'm trying to think what actor I'm more familiar with to compare him to. He's almost got a kind of Jack Palin energy, you know.
Yeah, he reminded me a bit too of Sean Bean. He has just facial features and also the kind of like stern, distant eyed characters that that Bean has sometimes played.
Oh yeah, I can see that because he does there is a weariness about him. Has He very well does that thing that's familiar to us from a lot of movies now of the the police detective who's just sort of worn out and tired of it all.
Yeah, he's so ripe, he's about to fall off the trip. I think maybe that's what that line means. That's the line will we'll come back.
I don't know what that means, but that could be. Yeah, I accept that interpretation.
Yeah, okay, So this is easily this actor's best known film internationally, but he was active in TV and film of the region from the late seventies to the late nineties and he was a Lappvian MM. Okay, so again, absolutely strong presence in the film, you know, a nice central performance and physical performance to base everything.
I read somewhere online somebody saying that the casting in this movie has almost the sensibility of like a caricaturist, that the cast is really selected for extremely distinctive looks. Yeah, and I would say that's the case of the next actor and character we're going to talk about, the hotel manager, Alex Snavar.
That's right, played by Yuri Jarvitt, lived nineteen nineteen through nineteen ninety five, playing the owner, the weird owner of the hotel, weird owner of a weird hotel. Estonian actor who was also in the Last Relic and played the lead in a nineteen seventy adaptation of King Lear, which I think fitting given that he has a very haunted look at times in this production and he is most famously in Tarkowsky's nineteen seventy two science fiction film Solaris.
I believe he actually had third billion in that.
Okay, I don't remember exactly, but I think he's one of the scientists on the base.
He's a doctor character.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this guy. What I'm about to say might feel like it doesn't make any sense, but stick with me. I would almost describe his energy as sweet, cuddly Kinsky, Like if you could imagine a mirror image, like like, suck all the evil and poison out of Klaus Kinski and make like a sweet, nice version of him, That's what this guy makes me think of.
Yeah, I can see that. I can definitely see that, all right. The next character is Simone Simonet. He's our wall crawling physicist played by Limbeth Peterson born nineteen fifty three, Estonian actor and once more, this is probably the actor's best known film internationally.
This guy's got a very nervous kind of high strong energy and you really don't know what his deal is for most of the movie. But I liked him all right.
And the next character is Hinkus. This is the only name that has ever attributed to him, played by Mick Mickever, who lived nineteen thirty seven through two thousand and six.
Estonian actor whose credits include some of the expected sort of dramas you would imagine, because again there are a lot of more traditional dramas, less speculative work that you've seen a lot of these actors work during this time period, but also another key player in the short lived Estonian sci fi wave as well as some Russian science fiction.
He appears in the Russian nineteen eighty seven film The End of Eternity based on the work of Isaac Asimov, as well as the bonkers looking Estonian Indiana Jones esque sci fi adventure The Curse of Snake Valley from nineteen eighty eight.
He sent me a link to this one. It looked I gotta see this.
Yeah, this one looked It looks less great. Yeah, in some respects like it looks like it's more like bonkers and kind of like B cinema in its flavor, but also looks just irresistible. So if I, if I, if you said, okay, you have to do another Estonian film next week, it would it would have to be the Curse of the Snake Valley. I'm not sure how widely available this one is, though.
Yeah, I've got to see it at some point. I don't know if we'll talk about it, but I've got to see it.
Mick of Her is quite great in this and has numerous places where he really gets to shine.
Yes, yeah, all right.
Next we have a couple of Moses to consider. There's mister Moses and there's miss missus mos uh okay, and I I'll start with mister Moses played by Carlos Cebus nineteen fourteen through two thousand and nine, Latvian born actor who played Gloucester in that King Lear adaptation that I referenced earlier. And then we have Irena Crazati born nineteen fifty two as Missus Moses, Lithuanian actress best known for this film. But she really gets to run wild with a kind of weird performance.
Here, does she ever? Yeah, she was one of my favorites.
Like her. Her character's fashion sense in general demeanor is basically that of a post a zule Dana from Ghostbusters.
I would yes, and she really loves daredevil cops.
Yes, yes, you're a cop. You must be a daredevil. Next we have Lurevic played by Sue lev Luik, who lived nineteen fifty four through nineteen ninety seven, Estonian actor again. This was this was his first film, but he worked
up until his untimely death in nineteen ninety seven. His other credits include nineteen ninety three's Tear Up the Prints of Darkness, a horror film concerning a cursed ring in the days before the outbreak of the Second World War, and that one, by the way, is from the director of Curse of Snake.
Valley sounds thematically loaded. Yeah, this actor brings an intriguing sort of doomed mime energy.
Yes us and I believe by the time we really sing a lot from him.
I'm like, this.
Dude's a robot, there's no way this yeah, or an alien or both.
Wait, but he's actually not a robot. He's an alien. The other guy's a robot.
Yeah, But I feel like the line between robot and alien is kind of gray in this film, especially since we never get to see alien faces or like robot interiors, you know what I'm saying, Like, this is not that kind of film. It could have leaned into that a little bit, and I would have totally would have been okay with it, but it doesn't need it.
Agreed, But yeah, you are correct that even though this guy is said to be an organic alien, he does behave like the robots. Speaking of robots, this ski lodge also has like hot robots.
That's right. The first character is this guy, old Off, played by tit Harm born nineteen forty six, acclaimed Estonian ballet dan turned actor who also went on to be a ballet master, ballet manager, ballet choreographer. Like this is. This is a guy that's actually pretty big in the Estonian ballet scene and I think probably well known internationally if you were like into ballet. This is his best known film. He did some acting here and there, and we do get to see him dance, and he's good.
You can you can easily knowing that he's a dancer and watching him move you're like, yes, this checks out. But he does mention in the extras that the set was really cramped and so they didn't give him a lot of space to work with, so he's having to figure out how to move his body in a space that is not enabling him to do much.
His dancing choices, though, are intriguing and a lot of fun because he's essentially doing ballet ish kinds of moves to the sounds of Estonian prog rock.
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting to think about these these limitations. You know, all right, you're a famous ballet dancer. We want you to dance, but this is the space you get to do it in. And I'm also guessing they might not have even had the finish music. They'll be like, we don't know what you're dancing to yet, but just go ahead and do it. Do it in a way that's not going to harm your reputation.
Imagine you're an intergalactic robot dancing to King Crimson.
Yeah he pulls it off though, all right, So that's Oloff, and Oloff is kind of running around with this character Brune. Brune is played by Lithuanian actress n Joel Oslet born nineteen fifty four. I don't have much to add about
her career, but she's very good in this. And again, this is a film that generally lets a lot of its actors play a range of different emotions, you know, from just sort of detached modern living to like a robot or alien level of detachment, and also getting into fear and horrors.
Yeah, the character of brune High behind sunglasses for most of the runtime, but then later reveals her emotions and they're quite interesting.
Yeah. And then finally we have this character called Keza I believe, and she's she's like the housekeep, the housekeeper, and so she's mostly in the background in a lot of these scenes. But she's played by Karen Rad who lived nineteen forty two through twenty fourteen, an Estonian theater director and actor. And then the music, this is this is a this was again the music in this film. The score is just exceptionally effective. And this is the work of Spin Grunberg born nineteen fifty six.
We've summoned the spirit of Spin a number of times. Now we have to explain who he is.
Yeah, So the score here, it is. It's contemplative, it's suggestively astral in its vibes. It's an electronic score, definitely a synth score by Estonian synth masters Vin Grunberg, whose career has also taken him into the realms of prog rock and also Tibetan Buddhism. Prior to watching this film, I listened to his nineteen eighty one album Hingus or Breath, which is widely available on music streaming platforms. So this is not somebody whose work is like, you know, super
hard to find. He really made a name for himself and it is And yeah, Hingus is quite a wonderful collection of ambient electronic tracks, and it's kind of in keeping with the music we see here. His work is typically abstract and experimental. He's well worth looking up if you're into this sort of sort of sound like I am. You know, a lot of a lot of ambient DNA
in his work. And and Dead Mountaineer the hotel, his music plays again a huge role in establishing the atmosphere both inside of this strange hotel and its mini twists and mirrors, but also when when we're we're contemplating the exteriors, when we're like looking up at the mountains and these just like haunting pure blue skies and these like gleaming snow banks and so forth. Yeah, the score here is just highly effect.
It's a great example of musical compositions that somehow, without even having lyrics, sound like the themes you're trying to get the audience to think of. So there is a sort of recurring synthesizer theme that sounds so it'll be it'll happen when you're like panning up over the mountaintops and seeing the snow drifts and the glaciers, and it will sound like ice in a way, almost like snow or like kind of a freezing process, ice crackling. It
has a kind of high drone. But then also as the camera sort of pans to include the sky, it morphs to suggest cosmic themes, and it's really as you say, yeah, it evokes the themes with the sounds quite well.
Yeah. And so it's it's interesting, like you know, went into this having a taste for his music, then you know, really appreciating the score itself, and then knowing about how other aspects of the production we were, you know, so
planned in advanced and all. It was kind of surprising to read then on Deepbaltic dot com this is a culture blog centering in on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, that Gruenberg was kind of a last minute replacement in this production for esteemed Estonian composer Arvaux part and as a result, and since no work had apparently been done on it yet, he had a great deal of freedom. So it's like everything was already late nothing like, none of the music
had been turned in. They needed music. He didn't have much time, but it also meant that he got to really open up and try whatever he wanted.
I read in one of those articles I was looking at, I think it was the one by Carl Funk from the Estonian Film Institute, saying something about Soviet censors being concerned that the movie was trying to trying to get some like slip some Pink Floyd in there.
Yeah. I read this on the Deep Baltic article as well. The author here writes, quote, the tiny budget only allotted him a few precious moments with an EMS synth one hundred in Moscow, and even then what he created almost got barred by Soviet censors who are convinced that Ball was a lesser known track by Pink Floyd Ball, I guess, being one of the titles or one of the tracks on the score.
I wonder if that's the sort of proggy sounding track that tit harm and everyone are dancing to.
I guess so. Yeah, I kept looking around to try and find it. I would love to see the score and or soundtrack, you know, featured as a release. I don't think it's released anywhere. I couldn't find any evidence of it, so I also couldn't find a listing of what tracks were actually called. But yeah, this, this might be that prog rock dance number that everybody's grooving out to. And it is a great number, all right. One on that note, let's start get into the plot here.
All right. So the opening shot is ridges and peaks of the high Alps covered in snow, and there is eerie music. This synthesizer music that we were talking about already sounds kind of like drops and wheezes panning from one side to the other. And we see the lonely mountaintops and very cold feeling sunlight, and we zoom in on a snow covered road winding through the rocks, and a car comes around the corner, and here begins the voiceover.
This is a man's voice. It's gruff, weary. This is the voice of Glebsky, the detective, and he tells us I was on a call driving to a mountain lodge called the Dead Mountaineers Hotel. It was quite a difficult drive. Many years have passed now, but on dull shifts or during sleepless nights, I often recall what happened, and even now I cannot decide whether I was right or not. And as he narrates, we see him driving through the
mountains and here. One thing that I really like is that there are some shots that include the sun facing directly into the camera. And this is obviously this is not something you would normally do, you know, when you're shooting outside, as aim the camera right at the sun, But it works here and it happens throughout the movie. These shots with the camera just like blasting the or sorry,
with the sun just blasting the camera lens. They capture the way the sun sometimes feels when you're on a snowy mountaintop, where the sunlight seems colder and weirder, and it lacks that quality of gentle warmth that you might get on like a nice sunny day at sea level. Instead, it feels like just a bombardment, a blasting source of pale, hostile radiation.
Yeah. Yeah, it really makes this whole landscape feel alien and other worldly. Quite fittingly.
So, there's also another shot Rob I don't know if you noticed at the beginning here, but I liked it a lot. There's like a framing of a gap in a giant rock face that suggests gates or a gateway. And when we see this mountain gate, the soundtrack suddenly explodes with heavy synth and an emerging beat, and the narration goes on to say, what's strange is I can tell no one how it actually happened, not my wife, my friends, or the authorities. Only I know the whole truth.
So we start with this idea already that Glebsky is isolated in his knowledge of what we're about to see unfold.
Yeah, luckily he's going to tell us what's happening.
So as Glebsky approaches the hotel in his car, the narration died away, and instead we just get the ambient sounds of the car ride, the sedan bumping and jostling over uneven mountain road, and there's a tiny voice chattering on the radio. It sounds like it's speaking French, so made me wonder if this is supposed to if it's suggesting this is taking place in France, or I guess
also in Switzerland, where parts of Switzerland they speak French. Anyway, Globski arrives, he walks the snow covered path to the entrance. He's dressed in a brown leather trench coat, and I have to say, I think he looks very cool.
Yeah yeah, Like I said, this guy's perfect, and he's the costuming's great. He is our weary detective who just had a grueling drive up into the mountains on indeed some very snow covered and terrifying looking roads. Now he has to look into some sort of perhaps a murder. I just love somebody get this manager.
I just look at this guy and I think, you know what, he's gonna end up taking it too personal.
I think, oh, yeah, yeah, you know. Oh.
And during this moment, interesting thing like we look up in the sky we see hang gliders. We see them swooping around, sometimes apparently upside down, though it's possible that I guess the film is just upside down. And it suggests like, are these hang gliders watching him approach the hotel?
Yeah? I think they are. I think that the footage is inverted here to make it feel all the more haunting. Also, this is we'll find out later that this is old Off and Brun up there in the sky tearing around. I have questions about how they got up there, but
I don't know. I take it for granted that they knew how to do it, but yeah, it's an excellent weird sequence very early in the film here, especially as it is combined with the music to create this kind of horror of the empty blue sky feel that I know I've personally long connected with since I was a child, you know, there being something about like a perfect blue sky that feels kind of overwhelming in a little uncanny, So a very creepy moment at least for me.
Totally. Yes, So Glebsky goes inside. The lobby of the hotel is empty, it's cavernous. His footsteps echo. This doesn't feel like what you'd think of when you think a mountain ski lodge, which you know you think cozy, roaring fire. I don't know that kind of stuff. No, this place feels cavernous and dank, and it's just a vibe. Like Rabbi attached a screenshot from the lobby that we can talk about here. There are sickly green tones over the
white marble tile. There is black darkness in the recesses of the room. In the middle of the lobby, there is a prominent portrait. It's a man with shaggy hair wearing sunglasses with what looks like a neon orange tube light tracing the outline of the top of his head, suggesting a sort of tech noir halo. And the inspector stops to examine the portrait and again, something about this place feels not quite like a hotel. It feels like some other kind of place.
Yeah, it really feels like this could be a corporate headquarters from an early Cronenberg film.
Yeah, but something you pointed this out in the in the notes, Rob, there's something about the portrait of the mountaineer here, because we will find out that the face we see in this portrait is the titular dead mountaineer of the Dead Mountaineer's hotels. It suggests not just like a portrait, but something almost kind of like religious or there's like, yeah, it's like a shrine or something.
Yeah, yeah, totally so.
Glebsky's wandering around in this weird lobby and suddenly somebody starts to speak from the shadows behind him. It's a man's voice, and he says, speaking of the portrait, that's the mountaineer. He was caught in an avalanche. He was carried five hundred meters to his death. And there's a reverse shot and see the man speaking, and again this is just like what is going on? I guess this is the front desk of the hotel, but it could
not be less hospitable. There's an old man in sort of a black turtleneck standing in the shadows in front of a window shutter. He looks like count Orlock. And there's a cherry red lamp in the foreground. Something about it gives it suggests blood. And then also there is a Saint Bernard panting on the in the right of the frame. Just a dog sitting there like what's a leak and drool.
Enormous, enormous dog, which turns out to be a real sweetheart. But you know, initially it's just like that.
Dog's here, yes, And this man who looks like maybe he just drank someone's blood. He introduces himself as Alex Snavar, owner of the hotel as well as the valley and the surrounding mountains. That's what he says. And I was like, wait, you can own a mountain. I guess he can, but you know he actually the same thing happens with Alex Snavar that happens with the dog, because Snavar looks kind of threatening at first, but he will turn out to
be a sweetheart. Yeah, we learned that the Saint Bernard is named Lel, and he goes to sit underneath the portrait of the mountaineer. Snavar explains that the dog was the mountaineer's faithful companion before the accident, So the accident can have happened all that long ago, and Lel now likes to sit and gaze at the image of his old friend. So Glebsky, of course, he wants to know why he was summoned to the hotel. Somebody called the police and here he is, but Snavar has no answers.
He claims he never called them. It must have been a guest. So Glebsky he rings up his captain and tells him, you know, it's too late to return through the mountain fog. He's gonna have to stay the night at this resort hotel, and he's gonna have to try some of the hotel's famous Adelweiss vine.
Yeah, so, like we were saying earlier, he's kind of going into vacation mode. It's like, all right, false alarm, but I've at least got the night.
No taking it to person. And for me tonight I'm gonna I'm gonna relax. Oh and I like how well the Saint Bernard is the bell hop here at the hotel like snae Bar tells the dog Glebsky's room number, and the dog picks up his bag and his big slobbery mouth and takes it to the room.
Yep.
So we see the inspector settling in outside his window, he sees a shadow in the snow. It looks like the silhouette of someone on the roof of the hotel drinking and throwing bottles over the edge. So here we start to get glimpses of the other guests. Those two people hang gliding from earlier. They come in after they finish their hang gliding, and we learned that these are Olof and brune. Olof Is is the man played by played by the dancer tit Harm and brune Is is
the woman. Uh. And then also up on the roof there is a man in a fur coat admiring the mountains. He's in like a sort of lawn chair, and we meet him and learn that his name is Hincus. And I wanted to add a note about this. You know, there's that Spinn Greenberg album called Hingus, which, as you said, is Estonian for breath. So I'm wondering if this is actually different or if it's basically suggesting that this character's name is breath.
I don't know, but yeah, it's a you can't help him make that connection.
And it would be thematically appropriate because Hinkus tells Glebski that he is here at the hotel because he has tuberculosis and the doctors have told him that he must breathe fresh mountain air in order to recover. Now Here comes a funny moment next, because Glebsky hears the dinner bell and so on the way down to dinner with all the other guests, he encounters a man wedging himself between the walls up near the ceiling and the staircase, and the guy hops down and introduces himself. He says,
I'm Simone Simine, commander of the cyber Forces. But then he says he's a he's a physicist, actually, and this is his first vacation in four years. He says, Project Midas heard of it top secret, then why would you have heard of it? But Simone Cimine says that he came here to climb the mountain, but there's too much snow, so he can't climb the mountain, so he climbs the walls instead. He says that the doctors prescribed him sensory pleasures.
Now at the dinner table, here Snavevar introduces Glebsky to the other guests. There is a young lady in an orange top wearing huge, weird sunglasses. This is the woman Brune. Next to her is this handsome young man in a blue shirt and an orange ascot with a shaggy mulletish haircut. This is Olof again, Brun and Oloff for the hang gliders, and they seem to be an item. They're kind of
just smooching and cuddling. At the dinner table, we also meet missus Moses, a woman in a lavender outfit with a first hole, curly hair and sort of frightening makeup.
Yeah again, roughly post zul Dana and Ghostbusters. That's her fashion.
That's exactly right right on the nose. And so Glebski comes in and she's like, she says, I love Policeman, heroes, Daredevil's are you a daredevil inspector and he's like, nope, just just regular and she says, no, no, no, no, any man who looks like you must be a daredevil. And the next here comes mister Moses. He's sort of a boring seeming older man with gray hair and a gray card. Again, he he almost kind of blends into the background. It's like you're you're not really supposed to
notice him. Yeah, And then there's also the housekeeper at the hotel here, this is Kaisa. So everybody settles in and the hotel manager is like, anyway, as I was saying before you arrived, I am in total agreement with mister Eric von Danakin. Aliens have repeatedly visited Earth, and I was I could not believe what we were in for here was I did not know we would get an Eric von danik and reference in the movie. This is in the real world. The author of the book Chariots of the.
Gods, Yeah, with the with the question Mark, which.
Is a famous book alleging on the basis of incredibly poor evidence and reasoning that aliens have repeatedly visited Earth in the in the past and are responsible for I don't remember exactly what he connects it to probably the various ancient stories and monuments and stuff.
Yeah, the whole alien astronaut hypothesis situation, which which we recorded a few episodes of stuff to blow your mind about a few years.
Back, analyzing from a from a skeptical perspective, and then we ended up talking about like Carl Sagan's point of view on like if aliens had visited Earth, what kind of evidence you would actually expect to see and stuff like that. Yeah, so yeah, so Snaevar, He's like, I
love Eric Vondanakin. Aliens have been here, I know it, and Simone and the physicist is like, Fondanakin is a Charlott, no way, and Stevar rebukes him, basically saying that his opinion doesn't count because he is a scientist and thus biased, and he says that the question of aliens is one of poetry.
I kind of like that. I feel like we would be better off if all alien conspiracy theorists were so honest and self reflective where they were like, you know, this isn't a fact based thing. This is about This is about feelings, This is about art. Yeah, Like, I know, this doesn't actually connect with reality. This is about like a mythic understanding of the world.
Or something, right, Yeah, this is I'm talking about this for fun, because it's you know, it's interesting and exciting to my emotions, not because you know, I'm insisting that the evidence is it must be real.
Yeah, but already we get a little flavor here of Yeah, there's like, on one hand, the logical, on the other hand, something that seems illogical, but also might conform to a different reality or different expectations of reality.
They ask the police inspector's opinion, and Glebsky identifies himself as a rationalist, and I guess that means he agrees with simone he doubts Eric Vandanakin. So later some time passes and there are a few different scenes of the guests hanging out together. One is some kind of billiard's game. I assume this is not, unfortunately snooker. The billiards game featured in what was it called Billy the Kid in
the Green Bays Vampire, a previoushouse pick. I don't could you recognize what game they're playing round?
I don't have a good good eye for these related games. Yeah, it looked like they were playing with all white balls at one point. I don't know if that means anything.
I don't know what all white balls means.
Yeah, pool enthusiast and write analysts.
But they have this conversation about whether or not the inspector is going to turn Oloff into food. But then interesting thing is that like Oloff is so good at the game that it's like not any fun because he just like Snink, he sinks every shot with absolute precision. So Olof is like the ultimate Billiard's hustler here.
Yeah, and then he's like I'm out.
Yeah, So it'd be great to see him go up against the Green Bays Vampire Alan Armstrong.
Yeah, that would have been a logical sequel, right, Green Bays Vampire versus a robot versus tit.
Harm Yeah yeah, Okay. So later that night we get the scene where this is the dancing scene we've referred to a few times where everybody's like dancing to heavy prog rock. Oloff and Brun are dancing with these jerky whipping movements with their arms going out. Mister Moses is playing chess with somebody I wasn't sure who, and then
Glebsky talking to Snavar, is he has questions. He's like, who is this mister Moses, and Snavar says, he's registered as a traveling businessman, but I have no idea where he's traveling. The road ends here. The only way is back.
It's a good points, great little party. We gotta say, like, I kind of want to go to this party. Oh yeah, because there's some cool dance and great music. And if you don't want to dance, well, you know, have yourself a drink and play some chess. We've got activities for everyone.
Extroverts and introverts are welcome. Yeah. Yeah, So Glebsky dances with missus Moses here again. She's she seems very into him. She's got like a big white feather in her hat or on her head. He seems kind of hypnotized. I wasn't sure what this was supposed to mean. Did you get the same impression that Glebsky's like sort of out of his mind here?
Yeah? I mean I assumed he was drunk. That was where I was at it.
That would make sense because.
He did say he wanted to have that wine, and he at this point he's just like I'm off the clock. You know, there's no there's no crime to investigate here, I might as well have a good Yeah.
And so basically everybody at the hotel's partying except for Hankas they say, he's still up on the roof. He just doesn't come down to party. He's on the roof all the time. And there was somewhere in here there's a shot I really like this creepy shot of a big evergreen tree back lit by the moon.
Yeah.
So Glebsky was dancing with miss and Moses, but then Simone comes in for his dance. He's like, hey, you want to dance with a with a cyber commander of cyber forces, And so she dances with Simon a and Globsky, admitting in the narration that he was drunk, he steps away from the party. He goes outside for some night air, and then he discovers that someone he doesn't know who
has slipped an anonymous note into his pocket. He opens the note to read it on this snowy pathway lit by these globe shaped lamps, and the note is cut and pasted with letters from a magazine like those ransom notes in the movies, and it reads, Hincus is part of a criminal organization. He is a dangerous terrorist called owl owl o w L.
That's fitting creepy nightbird with you know, various supernatural connotations in different cultures.
Yeah, this this struck is funny. When I was watching, just because my daughter is currently obsessed with owls. She loves to tell us what an owl says. It says who who?
Oh, that's correct.
But anyway, the note goes on to say a murder is planned. Do something. So Glebski is troubled by this, and he looks up on the roof to see the outline of Hinkas still in the chair up there, and he calls out to him. He yells hink OUs hing oos. But unfortunately this shout seems to trigger something. There is some kind of rumbling in the snow covered peaks above.
This was an unfortunate Hincus and the ominous like, there's this ominous droning sound, Matt, this pad underneath everything that begins here, and Hinkus from the roof does not respond. So Glebski runs up there, and when he arrives, he finds that the silhouette in the chair that he believed to be Hinkas is actually just Hinkus's coat stuffed with balls of snow. It was like a decoy snowman. So
where is Hincus. Well, the rumbling which started after Glebsky's shout begins to reach a sort of peak of intensity, and then the hotel guests see out the windows an avalanche coming down the mountain side.
Oh man, So first he's Ferris buellerd by Hinkas here, and then we get the avalanche. And I have to point out they apparently induced avalanches for the sequences we see in the film. They weren't relying on stock footage or anything. No, I don't know the full details. They may have aligned that with like planned induced avalanches that were done for safety reasons.
Yeah, oh yeah, it looked totally real. I was like, these aren't special effects.
Yeah, these are terrifying because at least later in the picture I can't remember this sequence so much. But later in the picture we get one where it's you know, it's coming right at the camera and like, that's a lot of snow, that's a lot of mass coming out.
You totally agree, Yeah, very effective shots. So when the avalanche happens, the power goes out at first, and we will discover that the avalanche has blocked the road and trapped them on the hotel grounds. It has also knocked out the telephone lines, and according to Snavar in a later scene, it will probably be days before the authorities can clear the road and they can leave. So Glebsky's sort of on the case. He's trying to figure out
what's going on. He investigates Hnkas's room and finds it empty. He searches through Hankas's belongings and finds a small pistol in his suitcase, and then Glebsky narrates though that this is not the weapon of a career criminal. He thinks somebody must be trying to set Hankas up, but who next thing, Snavar and Kaisa brings someone in from outside the hotel, someone who appears to be unconscious, and Glebsky
goes to help and they're like, who is this. We don't know what's wrong, possibly hypothermia, And they're like, get brandy, gotta have liquor.
Yeah, this is one of those movies where hard spirits are essentially potions of healing, you know what. They're two called, get him some liquor. Oh, the injured liquor, the delirium, unconscious, and whatever it is. Surely hard spirits can can solve the problem.
I mean, I don't know why Hinkus is not just taking cotton candy flavored vodka for his for his tuberculosis, you know. Anyway, so Snaevar guesses maybe this is a friend of Hincus because he heard Hinkus dictating a telegram earlier telling someone to come quickly to join him at the hotel. Sohnkus has summoned someone earlier in the day, and we don't know who, but maybe this is who he called. Anyway, they give the guy some brandy and
get him to say a couple of words. But all he can say is the name of Oloff.
Oh.
Remember, Olof's already a guest here at the hotel. This is this is the dancer guy. So they go to check out Oloff's room. But when they get there, uh oh, they find him lying out on the floor, pale, motionless. Dead.
Oloff is dead, all right, So now we really have a murder story going on here. It's time for our inspector to get back on the clock. He's got some work.
Yeah. In fact, Oloff is not just dead, like his head is twisted around unnaturally. It's kind of the Exorcist going on here. So of course Glebsky concludes what strength the killer must have had, and we see him like lie down on the floor and try to mimic like twisting his head around. But they also see that Olof's hand was stretching out toward the handle of a suitcase, so it's like he was reaching for the suitcase when he died. In another room, they find Hinkus finally, but
he is found tied to a bed. He says he was attacked by someone and he does not know who, and then the weird behavior just continues. We encounter Simone. Simone Simone, a physicist. He's running around in his tidy whiteies, trying to hide behind a sheet that he's like holding up with his hands. That's not gonna work, buddy, And we get a confession from him. Missus Moses is dead. He swears he didn't kill her. He says that he went into her room and she was already lying cold
on the floor when he went in there. The wait, no, not lying cold on the floor, she was standing upright, but cold and dead. And then her wig fell off, revealing a bald head. Things are getting stranger.
Yeah, yeah, we're getting a kind of a Blue Sunshine vibe going on in this one.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe she took the Blue Sunshine acid and now she's ready to activate. But then they go to missus Moses's room to check this out, and she's not dead. She's in there, alive, reading a book. She's fine. She smiles at them. So something really weird is a foot now, and Glebsky is starting to get frustrated because I think when it was just a murder, he was sort of like, he was like, Okay, I'm on the case, But now everything's so weird. He's like, I don't know
what's going on, and I don't like it. So back in Semone's rooms, Semine showers, he tries to sober up, and Glebsky shows him a strange contraption that he found with Olaf. It's this weird device inside the suitcase that Oloff had been reaching for. It has this soft pulsing light and it emits low beeping sounds, and Simone says he doesn't know what it is, but it could be
something military or from outer space. Better be careful. Then he runs away in fear, so they I think they like lock up this contraption in a cabinet under the dog bed, and Glebsky has the only key, so he's the only person who can get to this suitcase. Now he goes and tries to talk to Brune, and the mystery just keeps developing. He tries to talk to Brune about what happened. She apparently Sawhnkas walking in the hall
after he claimed to have been attacked. And then we go and check with Hinkus about this, what was going on? You know, were you lying? And he says that it was him that he tied himself up. The implication here is that there is another one of him.
And this is a great scene. It's especially a great place for the actor Mick mcavver playing Hinkus to really shine because it's he's not just saying oh yeah, yeah, I encountered me and I tied him up, like no, this the character is clearly confronting this moment of horror, this moment of duplication where he encountered like his own double, his own doppelganger here and had this kind of violent interaction with them and is clearly just traumatized and confused by the whole incident.
Yes, agree that Micaver is great in the scene, and Glebsky is totally disturbed at this point. He wanders through the hotel by himself thinking over the case. Like here, there's a visual motif of flickering lights, Like often somewhere in the background a light will flutter on and then
flutter off on a loop throughout a scene. Yeah, there's also a moment in here where somebody is watching TV, or at least there's a TV on somewhere, like in the lobby of the hotel, and it looks like what it's showing is like news clips of people falling out of buildings.
Yeah, this was very disturbing. So this is like in a I think this kind of like circular room with one of these neat like central circular stoves warming everything up, and there's a TV. And Yeah, it was disturbing because on one hand, I kind of have to assume this is real footage of people falling to their deaths here, So it's outside of the context of the film, it's disturbing to see that kind of thing. But even within the context of the film, why is it playing here
in the lobby of the hotel. Did they just play Faces of Death on repeat here?
Yeah?
Do they tune into the outlaw videodrome snuff channels in Cronenberg's video drama film gets It's just weird and strange and just adds to that level of uncertainty about where we're going in this film. Yeah.
Yeah, So there were more interrogation scenes where Glebsky's trying to figure out what's happening. He interrogates Brune about what happened earlier when she went to Oloff's room. She said that they were they're dancing, kissing, having a wild time, and then suddenly they see the avalanche beginning outside the window of the room, and Oloff panics and throws Brune out of the room into the hall, and then later he's found dead. Glebsky and Alex sort of talk over
the mystery together. Snaevar's sort of Glebsky's confidant. He's playing his doctor Watson, and Alex says that Glebsky's rational investigatory tools are useless here. He says, like time at greater than light speed, that's a strange comparison, but then he says, there is nothing we can do. You are not ripe yet, And this is the moment when Glebsky says, I'm so ripe I will fall off the trees soon.
I love this exchange. It's I assume something is lost in translation here, like it doesn't fully translate into English from the original Estonian, but I still sort of get it, like it's still it still feels very true.
Yeah, yeah.
So.
In the scene also they talk about the concept of zombies, and Snavar wonders if perhaps zombie is the third state of living organisms, beyond life and death.
Yeah, very high.
So Glebsky falls asleep listening to Snavar talk about zombies, and then he has dreams of skiing down a vast snow covered mountain side and he's going so fast. He seems to be smiling at first, but then maybe it seems his expression is actually one of fear. There are weird tones on the soundtrack that sound like animals wheezing. And then suddenly in the dream, Glebsky goes off the edge of a cliff and he falls and falls into the snow down below, and then from up above a
figure looks down at his body. We zoom on the figure and there are two figures. In fact, it is the dead mountaineer from the portrait and his dog Lell.
Yeah. Really great moment, you know, haunting and also makes us think back to that kind of the shrine like qualities of the dead mountaineer's portrait. You know, is the dead mountaineer like a even in the context of dream here? Is it like a ghost? Is it a divine force? And I also have to point out this may be the only sequence in the film where anybody does any skiing. Yeah, and it is within a dream.
No, there is some skiing later, but it happens without skis and in the wrong direction.
Yes, yes, and by by robots.
Yes.
I guess. Well, we did see the hang gliding earlier, and I guess maybe that involves skiing. I don't know how they got up there. Maybe they skied off of something.
I'm not sure. We'll come back to that in a minute. So, So Glebski is woken up by the saint Bernard Lell like slobbering on his face, and the dog has brought him something. It is a gun covered in drool. So Glebsky's like, where did it come from? Boy? And lel leads him outside into the snow and shows him where the gun was. Glebsky deduces that it must have been thrown from the roof, so did it belong to Hinkus? Next, Snaevar brings news, I remember that unconscious guy we found outside.
He's conscious now, so they go to interrogate him. And now that he's awake, he really looks like death. There's this dark makeup under his eyes. His skin is pale, even kind of blue in places. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot, and he just stares ahead in a daze. And Glebsky interrogates him, finds out that his name is Lurevic, mister Lurevic, Luarvic. He is looking for Oloff, and he won't say a whole lot. Glebsky's like, who are you? Are you a foreigner? And the man says, yes, a foreigner.
And also in this scene, mister moses remember him. He was kind of like nondescript earlier on. He tries to sneak in on the interrogation, but Glebsky chases him away and Lurevic, on finding out that Oloff is dead doesn't seem all that concerned. He says, well, he still needs to see Oloff anyway, to conduct some business with him. And Glebsky's like, no, he's dead, and Lurevic is like, yeah,
let me talk to him. But in this whole scene, Luorovic is dreamy, languid, kind of unconcerned, but does look like he's in a bad state, and he does identify Oloff's body. He says, he recognizes he recognizes him, and he knew him from elsewhere. And this was one scene. Yet again, this is all throughout the movie. But I really noticed the presence of like the modular mirrors in the sets in the scene.
Yeah, and it's fitting, especially at this point in the picture, because we have already come head to head with this with a theme of duplication here, of doppel gangers and doubles, and so yeah, I feel like we're constantly seeing characters in mirrors or multiple mirrors, and the hotel eventually feels like a place that's not only in the edge of the wilderness, but also in the edge of the known universe.
Yeah. Yeah, So Lurevic says he's looking for the suitcase that olof had and Glebsky says, I'm not just going to give it to you. You got to answer questions first. But of course Luvic he doesn't want to answer questions. He just wants the suitcase instead of answering questions. He gets very slow and says that he must lie down, and then he just sort of slumps back and appears
to go to sleep with his eyes open. Somewhere in here there's a scene with Snavar playing the organ and he's not good at it, and Glebsky's just kind of lounging stoically, smoking a cigarette and listening to the bad organ concert. And so, you know, they again have one of their detective consultation sessions. They talk to each other about what could be going on, and Glebsky says, you know, he's nearly convinced that Lurevic Oloff and mister Moses, or
either mister or missus Moses, maybe both of them. He doesn't say who. He says they belong to the same gang, which doesn't want publicity, and he thinks Hnkas is somehow connected to them as well because of the gun he found. So Glebsky comes up with a plan. He says he's gonna stop detaining Hnkas and set him free, quote like a fox into a chicken coop to see what happens. Meanwhile, Glebsky is busy playing with a metal wind up robot toy.
I don't know about this plan, Glebski. Is that a good police police work plan?
Yeah, seems like this is more like rogue cop territory. Yeah.
Yeah, So everybody comes down for breakfast the next morning. I guess when he's gonna set Hankus loose. And Simon A says, I sense the smell of death in here, and Bruin says, beautiful weather today. Poor Olof didn't live to see it. And Lurevic is now at breakfast with the rest of him. He has to be guided to his breakfast chair and he eats some piece of fruit, like letting this juice run all over his face. I think Hinkas arrives to breakfast wearing a tuxedo. That's kind
of that's a choice. But Glebsky says, you know, quote, it appears some crooks selected this hotel as a place to settle their scores. With the help of mister Snavar, I sent word to the police by pigeon. The police helicopter will arrive shortly, the criminals will get their just desserts. I advise that criminal activity be ceased. Of course, what is Missus Moses's reaction to this going to be? Of course, she's like, oh boy, how exciting killers among us? I love it.
Stop doing crimes, everybody, because the helicopter will shoot.
Yes, I got the pigeon to bring a helicopter that will stop you from doing crimes. Of course, the pigeon thing was actually a bluff. Glebsky knows he is on his own now. This leads up to the interrogation of Hankas scene. Hankas is like the last one eating breakfast, and then Glebsky watches him and pulls him aside. He's like, okay, I know about you from the note I received. You're this criminal called Owl, and Hankas says, no, I'm not Owl. I don't know what you're talking about. He's asked about
the gun. He denies that it's his, but then suddenly he sort of busts out and unleashes martial arts that he would not have seemed prepared to deliver, Like he's been playing like he's in poor health, but he easily beats up Glebsky, knocks him nearly unconscious, takes the gun with him, and then while the inspector is lying on the floor, we hear Hankas fighting with someone else off camera, and somehow I guess it is Simone the physicist. Like
Simon a beat bestshnkas and then helps Glebski up. That's unexpected.
Yeah, so now it's time to interrogate Hankas once.
Yeah, round two here and Hankas finally spills the beans. He's like, okay, here's the deal. Have you heard of the hit squads? That's what he says. I was a member of one of them. Something terrible is going on here. Supernatural forces are at work. He explains that quote. Half a year ago, some guy approached us. No one knew his name. They called him Master. They assigned him the hardest jobs, remember the second National Bank job. That was his doing. But then he quit working for us, left
us high and dry. Oh. Yes, he was always a bit eccentric. Wouldn't let us kill hostages or anyone. He said, we shouldn't. That's why we had a fight with the boss and then he disappeared, along with his assistant and his wife. I was ordered by the boss to find them, And Glebsky says, and you found them here? Who are they? And Hankas says, no, you tell me who they are. What man could get the better of me as if
I were a kitten. So you think he's talking about Semone here because Simine just like beat him up after the first interrogation, and we look at Semine. But actually it goes in a different direction. Hankas says, this woman Moses knows I would not let him live, so he set his wife against me. She was coming right at me.
You don't believe me, but I was approaching myself. And so we see in Hankas's flashback Missus Moses in her fur coat seeming to transform into a doppelganger of Hnkas and then attack him by pushing him out a glass window. So what's going on? I don't know, But missus Moses apparently can become can like transform her appearance and become copies of people and attack them.
Yeah, we have shape shifters among us now.
Sohnkus admits he's here to hunt down this guy, the Master and his assistant and his wife. Now, Hinkas says he doesn't actually know what happened to Olaf. He says
he never laid a finger on him. But his gang boss is coming with three or four guys to finish the job, to kill mister Moses, who, in fact, the nondescript mister Moses, who seemed so innocent and you know, not even very remarkable, was in fact this this criminal mastermind, the master who did the second National Bank job, and except he got into some kind of squabble with this terrorist or criminal gang and now they're looking for revenge.
All right, So we've reached the secret mob members level of the big reveal here.
But then there's going to be another reveal, which is so there's a confrontation where Glebsky goes into a room with Snaevar and Simone. They're all here gathered in the room, and when Glebsky enters the room, he sees himself what but then the other hymn transforms back into someone else. He realizes that here in the room are mister and
missus Moses and someone else. Luarvic sitting doubled over in a chair, and Glebsky tries to say, okay, based on the testimony of Hincus, mister Moses, you are guilty of the robbery of the Second National Bank and of the murder of Oloff, and I'm going to have to arrest you. But Simone is there and he explains, no, no, no, you don't get it, Inspector, these are not humans. They're
aliens from another planet. He says, I don't know where they're from, another dimension or galaxy, but they're in trouble and we have to help them. He says, mister Moses arrived here as an observer, but he made a fatal mistake. He should not have contacted humans. And mister Moses explains that. He says, it's true. I wasn't supposed to interfere with human life, but when I saw how you were living, I broke the rule. I wanted to help you so much, but your life proved to be too complex for me.
So somehow this part is a little murky for me. But somehow mister Moses, being an alien observer of Earth who was supposed to look at human life but not interfere with it, decided that he took pity on us because of all the human suffering and got involved. But the way he got involved was with some kind of criminal gang. I'm not quite sure I'm making the connection there.
Yeah, maybe there's some sort of robin Hood thing going on there, or maybe he was like, crime is doing a lot of damage. I'm going to get in there and do crime really well, but not hurt anybody. Yeah yeah, and that why so I don't know, you know, he's going up against very difficult societal and yeah, yeah, problems and so forth.
So but given all the backstory we already got from Hinkas, now we know that the gang bosses are hunting down these these fugitive aliens, and so mister Moses is here at the hotel so he could leave the planet. They say, here in the mountains is our launch pad, but the avalanche destroyed the generator that powered our robots. So Missus Moses and Oloff are the robot helpers of mister Moses
and Luarvic. The man they discovered outside is the pilot of the alien spaceship, and he was severely injured to say, his spacesuit is torn. He's becoming weaker every second. So so what I mean this reveal is very sudden, and it's just kind of like poured on Glebsky and like, how is he supposed to react?
Yeah, and again it doesn't come with reveals of robotic interiors to human bodies or anything like.
Right, but they say that remember that suitcase Olof was reaching for, It actually has another battery and if they return it, if they if Glebsky will return the battery to them, Oloff can be revived and then he won't be dead at all. He's just a robot who's on low power and they'll give him more power and he's fine, so this won't actually be a murder. But Glebsky thinks this is all madness. He says that every crime can be explained by appealing to fantasy, and this leads to
arguments between Glebsky and Semone. Simina is saying like, look, you're being offered proof right now, see for yourself. But Glebsky says, interestingly, quote, I'm not a scientist, I'm a police officer. I've heard too many lies about the suitcase. So he's sort of saying that he operates not just on physical evidence, but by primarily suspicion of motive, which can even override physical evidence.
Hmmm. Oh.
We also find out here that mister Moses is the one that called the police and slipped the note into Glebsky's pocket, and it's because he wanted to be rid of Hinkus and he knew Hankus was there. He was the criminal who was hunting him. And so at one point in this conversation, mister Moses laments. He's like, it's it's troubling that you won't be convinced because our robots are too convincing as humans. You know, if they were
just obviously robots, then maybe you'd believe us. He says, it's a pity I can't show you my real face.
So yeah, this is kind of getting to my earlier point about this is not the sort of film that is that that needs to show you the alien face that the robotic interiors. Again, I wouldn't have said no to it, but you can understand this choice based on this interaction. Yeah.
Yeah, but here we get this this conflict with Glebsky where he's like, no, I must turn you into the law. So he's he's conflicted, and he wanders around the hotel alone. At one point he even picks up a phone receiver and then says in voiceover narration that he wishes the phone would simply give him orders to follow because he sort of feels like he can't think for himself, he can't decide what's the right thing to do. So he walks out into the snow and he meets Brune out there.
Remember Brune was the one who was in love with Olaf, and Brune begs him to give the battery to them so they can revive Oloft. So she's read into the whole theory now and she believes it. He's like, Glebsky tries to tell her this is nonsense, it's a fairy tale, but she says, if there's something that even might help him, you've got to give it a try. And she says, if Olof is an android, maybe she's an android too.
She says, how could I know? So this all finally leads to a conclusion where Glebsky is trying to arrest mister Moses and won't give the battery back, but eventually he is sort of overpowered and overruled by Simone and by Snaevar, who both they are aware of the aliens and robots, and they want to help them, so they sort of restrain Glebsky, and they get the suitcase and they give it to the Aliens so that Oloft can
be powered back up. And there are these moments in here where Semine is reflecting on the tragedy of the situation. Simone says, here is the first encounter between two worlds. Think of how amazing this is, but think that they arrive from god knows where. First they meet terrorists, and then they meet a police officer like you, Glebsky, sort of saying like you're showing them the worst side of humanity.
But finally, as the Aliens get the battery back and they are allowed to escape, like the whole building starts shaking and rumbling like something huge is coming. Glass shatters in the windows and we hear a voice echoing saying goodbye humans. Real contact is yet to come. And then we get one of the most striking shots the movie,
which is the aliens departing. They're like cloaked figures seemingly skiing uphill without skis to the top of the mountains so they can get in their spaceship and leave.
Yeah, just just robots, moving swiftly, unnaturally over the surface of.
The syn Right, so Missus Moses is carrying mister Moses, Olaf is carrying Luarvic and they're gonna escape to the stars. Unfortunately, Oh, here comes a helicopter. And at first you might think, oh, the helicopter, that's that's gonna be their rescue, right, No, it's the gang. It's the gang members. It's Hnkas's gang arriving,
and the helicopter buzzes over their heads. Finally, after Snavar sees it and says God forgive us all, the helicopter unleashes its guns and it kills the two Aliens and the the androids and they lie dead in the snow.
Yeah, blows them right up. Aliens robots completely destroyed.
So the helicopter we see like the Saint Bernard howling in pity. The hell copter leaves Silent Mountain peaks with this with again the creepy, squeaking synthesizers playing out the story, and in the end, the camera zooms in on the sun and then zooms out from the hotel. There is a lot of zooming of the camera in this film, and a huge avalanche approaches billowing over the mountain side,
finally enveloping the camera. This is one of these avalanche shots we talked about earlier, and the final shot of the film is actually Glebsky later in black and white, suddenly staring directly into the camera and he asks why you're looking at them looking at him. He insists that
he acted correctly. He says, by upholding the law, he performed his duty and the law is sacred, and he's sort of like he gets defensive and angry, and it just repeatedly insists directly into the audience's face that he was right, he did the right thing, and considerations to the contrary are just being illogical.
Now corning to the feature D, this scene, this apper at the end in black and white, with him speaking directly to the camera. This is actually footage from this is casting footage for the film, and they added it in post because the studio thought that the ending wasn't clear enough.
That's interesting, which which.
Is Yeah, I mean I think it still works. You know, it reminds me a bit of you know, some of those those fourth wall breaking moments in Baraka or the ending of the mission. You know, there's a and and
it makes sense. It's not completely out of contact with the film, because we get those scenes where he's narrating, he's speaking to us, and then it seems kind of fitting that at the end he is looking at us, He is addressing us directly about this strange encounter that he had and these choices that he had to make.
Yeah, and I guess that does it for Dead Mountaineer's Hotel. But I found this a really interesting film. It does actually raise interesting themes in the end, but they kind of come late in the film, these themes about like, can this bureaucratic functionary, this policeman make a decision that makes sense given what he's just encountered, or can he just like not accept what's in front of him and sort of act as a as almost as a machine, as a robot himself.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a fascinating film. I really enjoyed diving into it. I enjoyed getting into this realm of Estonian cinema. So yeah, we'll throw it out to our listeners there. If you've seen Dead Mountaineer's Hotel, or if you've read the source material, or are you yourself listening of from Estonia, do you do you have additional insight about Estonian culture and cinema locations, actors, and so forth, write in We
would love to hear from you. Just a reminder of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with new episodes, core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episode on Wednesdays, listener mail on Mondays, but then on Fridays, we just set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you want a full list of the movies we've covered over the years, go to letterbox dot com. That's L E T T E R B O x
D dot com. Our username is weird House. You'll find a list there of everything we've covered so far, and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming up next.
Our regular audio producer Jjposway is out this week, so huge thanks to our guest producer Andrew Howard for helping us out today. Appreciate it, Andrew. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us as always at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.