The legendary Chelsea Hotel, an icon of 1960s counterculture and a haven for famous artists and intellectuals including Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and the superstars of Warhol's Factory, is under renovation. Soon it will reopen to the public as one of New York's most fashionable luxury hotels. Dozens of people, most in their later years, still live amidst the scaffolding and constant construction. Against this chaotic backdrop, the film takes us through the hotel's storied hal... (Full plot summary below)
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The legendary Chelsea Hotel, an icon of 1960s counterculture and a haven for famous artists and intellectuals including Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and the superstars of Warhol's Factory, is under renovation. Soon it will reopen to the public as one of New York's most fashionable luxury hotels. Dozens of people, most in their later years, still live amidst the scaffolding and constant construction. Against this chaotic backdrop, the film takes us through the hotel's storied halls, exploring its living body and the bohemian origins that contributed to its mythical stature. Its residents-casualties of capitalism-and the walls themselves now face a turning point in their common history.
Leave your thoughts about Dreaming Walls.
| The PlaylistChristian GallichioThere’s simply too many stories to contain about the Chelsea, but “Dreaming Walls” does well to show how the ghosts of the residents past can, hopefully, inform the hotel’s future. |
| Original-CinLiam LaceyBeauty and loss hold hands in Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, an intimate and impressionistic documentary about New York’s storied Chelsea Hotel from Belgian filmmakers, Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier. |
| TheWrapKatie WalshIn remaining present, with the past and future swirling feverishly, the film is a deeply poignant and moving love letter to those that remain, who “rage, rage, against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas once wrote. Someone’s got to make a stand for the last vestiges of the soul of New York City, and “Dreaming Walls” beautifully captures their fight and their dreams. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreWe’re invited to dream along with the filmmakers, without a lot of background, footnotes or interviews with experts or the celebrated folks who once lived there. |
| VarietyOwen Gleiberman“Dreaming Walls” sets out to capture not the history of the Chelsea, or even the experience of the people who’ve lived there, so much as the afterglow of the Chelsea. The aging residents it shows us can check out anytime (or get kicked out), but they can never leave. |
| Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayWhat results is an illuminating new way of seeing this old building — not just as an historic landmark where amazing things happened long ago, but as a place where people have actually lived full lives, finding shelter and inspiration in its haunted halls. |
| The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe film avoids providing too much context, a choice that contributes to the spectral atmosphere. The directors aren’t after a news piece; they’re just listening to voices that continue to echo in the corridors. |
| The Irish TimesTara BradyFor all Joachim Philippe and Virginie Surdue’s handsome cinematography, this lyrical documentary lacks focus and, more disappointingly, historical context. A missed opportunity. |
| IndieWireKristen LopezThe film presents a contemplative elegy for a hotel whose history is (still) being eroded, but by focusing on the literal walls (and how they, of course, can’t actually talk) only further removes the voices of the very people who live (and dream) inside of them |
| RogerEbert.comMarya E. GatesIt’s in exploring the iconography of the hotel that the documentary shines the brightest. Van Elmbt and Duverdier are clearly well-versed in the works that were created on the grounds, or by former residents, and do their best to imbue their film with the same timeless cool that pulses through them. |
