DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL (“HUKKUNUD ALPINISTI” HOTEL) – 1979, Tallinnfilm, 84 min. "I was on call to drive to a mountain hotel. The hotel's name was The Dead Mountaineer," says police inspector Peter Glebsky (Uldis Pūcītis) at the beginning of Estonian director Grigori Kromanov’s dazzling, paranoid mixture of locked-room mystery, 1970s Euro giallo, classic noir whodunit, and (unbelievably) alien sci-fi ala THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH. Based on a novel by famed Soviet authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (STALKER, HARD TO BE A GOD), the hall-of-mirrors plot follows Glebsky as he’s trapped by avalanche in the ski lodge with a rogues’ gallery of weird suspects: tubercular gangster Hinckus (Mikk Mikiver), creepy hotel owner Snewahr (Jüri Järvet, KING LEAR), a wall-climbing physicist (Lembit Peterson), a louche, wig-wearing beauty out of a Bryan Ferry song (Irena Kriauzaite) – oh, and the Dead Mountaineer’s faithful St. Bernard. The interior of the hotel (brilliantly art directed by Tõnu Virve and Priit Vaher, and photographed by Jüri Sillart) is straight out of a Dario Argento or Sergio Martino thriller: all chrome-and-marble with Space Age modern designs, drenched in champagne and feather boas. Featuring a stellar electronica / prog score by composer Sven Grünberg, the film combines an eerie THE SHINING-like mountain locale with speculative sci-fi straight out of Chariots of the Gods. “This is the end of the road. The only way is back,” as the hotel owner cryptically smiles. Newly restored in 4K by Deaf Crocodile in collaboration with the Estonian Film Institute and Film Archive. In Estonian with English subtitles. Digital Gym Cinema on Facebook / Instagram
