Hotel St. Pauli (1988) – Svend Wam.

After an expressly bleak title sequence, portents of existential doom heightened by a morose theme, we see the isolated, melancholic existence of young farmer Morgens (Oyvin Bang Berven) rural travails, contrasted by some voyeuristically metropolitan nookie, energetically performed by the equally handsome, actively bohemian participants of this ill-fated ménage à trois. Curiously, once the nervy country lad arrived at the train station, he hurriedly avails himself of the W.C, and proceeds to craftily knock one out? Is he an extrovert? Or does he simply have a perverse yen for the inglorious pen and ink of a public loo? His motivations remain unclear, as I don't Parlez vous a word of Swedish? The no longer amorous couple appear to have a fractious relationship, as Gerda (Amanda Ooms) didn't appear keen on her mullet-ed lover's (John Ege) persistent bedside scribbling? The Elvis-loving bumpkin Morgens then picks Gerda up, thinking she was a prostitute, and they return to the couple's studio apartment for a bit of the old in-out, but the naïve lad gets far more than he bargained for. I can't imagine the text being especially nuanced, since I question the rapidity of Morgens almost complete mental collapse, following a little rough sex, and one and a half spliffs? Perhaps Scandinavian home-grown has a prodigiously high THC content?

Singularly traumatized by the evenings events, a wan-looking Gerda has absconded to a dingy locale in Germany, presumably to wallow in nihilistic, opiated despair, rather than enjoying the country's renowned beer, and delicately spiced, pork-based delicacies. Even without he benefit of subbies, Hotel St. Pauli is sleazy, and pessimistic, being a somewhat shrill, melodramatic downward spiral, concluding brusquely in a pointedly hopeless fashion. I have always been a tad cynical about overly angsty yarns that include the ubiquitous anguished-in-a-church trope, I myself have been battered quite severely by life, and, as yet, I have never once been compelled to seek momentary succour in a draughty old church; I must still have too much heathen in me for that! I don't wish to disparage the actor playing Morgens performance, but there were one or two moments when he appeared to be over-egging it somewhat!?! With one part Fassbinder Sturm und Drang, a minim of Bergman, plus a major of Joe D'Amato, the intermittently erotic drama Hotel St. Pauli remains a hysteric, yet absolutely watchable example of noisome Scandi-gloom.