Facts

Original Title

Mr. K

Genre

Surrealistic Drama

Production Year

2023

Country of Origin

Netherlands, Belgium

Language Spoken

English

Length

96 min

Release Date
January 2025 by Paradiso

Director

Tallulah H. Schwab
Scriptwriter
Tallulah H. Schwab

Cast

Crispin Glover, Sunnyi Melles, Fionnula Flanagan, Bjørn Sundquist, Dearbhla Molloy, Barbara Sarafian, Jan Gunnar Røise, Esmée van Kampen and Sam Louwyck

Production Companies
Lemming Film (NL), A Private View (BE)

Producers
Erik Glijnis, Leontine Petit, Dries Phlypo, Judy Tossell

Mr. K, a travelling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of the hotel he slept in. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper inside, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.

Tallulah H. Schwab

Director

Tallulah H. Schwab was born in Oslo, Norway in 1973 and came from a long line of actors and theatre designers. She virtually grew up within the walls of the national theatre. As soon as she graduated from school, she moved to Amsterdam where she first studied film directing at the film and Television academy and later theatre at the theatre school. She made a number of short films for which she received awards both inside and outside of Holland. Her single play Mimoun and her series Taart were both nominated for an Emmy award and her feature film, Confetti Harvest was selected for the Generation program at the Berlinale festival in 2015.

When I was a child the world seemed like a magical place where everything was possible. In adolescence it felt like a maze full of fascinating strange people who lived by social codes I did not understand but found intriguing. Many times in adulthood I thought I had found the answer to who I was and what my life should be, but then something unexpected would happen that turned everything upside down.
I grew up very protected, so these moments of drastic change were scary to me. They challenged what I thought my life was, the things I had felt sure of. Still, if I think back, these were probably the moments when I saw things most clearly. I felt the crushing randomness of life and realized how much more the world really is than the everyday life I had created for myself. I was confronted with the fact that what I saw around me was only a fraction of what life is, that I had merely created a comfortable bubble around myself.
As a person I am by nature like the inhabitants of the hotel. I don’t want to change and I want to be safe and shut out things that scare me. But at the same time I know I am fooling myself. Part of me is like Mr. K who can’t pretend that everything is all right.
What I have been exploring in "Mr. K" is the way we try to mold reality into something we can control and understand. How we protect the status quo by surrounding ourselves with others who share our view, making the world bite size and relatable.
But any personal truth is a paradigm waiting to be popped. There is always something more, something that comes from left field, something you hadn’t thought about that bursts your bubble and forces you to reassess all your previous assumptions.

-Tallulah H. Schwab

STATEMENT

The film touches on the absurdity of existence and the frustrating fact that there are no right answers. It’s about big truths, versus small truths and how we struggle to find meaning in a complex and ever changing world. How do we recognize what is important? What do we make important? What makes us feel safe? Who do we follow? Which truth do we choose? How do we know our own limits? How do we deal with change and the fear that comes with it? How do we deal with the unknown? How do we meet the future?
“Mr. K” is an existential drama. Existentialism is a philosophical movement in which individual freedom, responsibility and subjectivity is central. Existential stories are not about the issues of the day and the specific problems in a point in time. They deal with the timeless, universal questions. Why am I here? What is the meaning of my existence? Hence the name. They are questions that stay relevant throughout the ages. Mr. K is placed in the center of a chaotic and confusing world that keeps changing. Isn’t that essentially the human condition?
"Mr. K" is also a story about a man who feels completely irrelevant but discovers that he is in fact destined to play a role far greater than he can ever hope to fathom the importance of. It is about keeping an open mind, going down new paths and learning to accept the unknown.

This film is about the struggle to find purpose and identity, using the mysterious hotel as a metaphor for our own life journey

Understand the film and the characters

The minisocieties in the hotel reflect the different types and personalities our world consist of

Change and the dreams of change as well as the fear of the unknown are major themes in the film

Mr. K.'s life starts when he enters the hotel, and he must try to find meaning to his existence on his own

The creature in the basement and walls is a symbol of how the world gradually changes

Anton is a control freak and kitchen assistant who wants a career and his own restaurant

Mr. K. represents the individual struggling to find his place in the world, while change is gradually happening

GAGA is the hotel's composer. She's an artist that wants to be ready to go on tour with the orchestra

The Monchien sisters are some of the hotels oldest residents. They rarely come out of their room and have accepted their life as it is

The chef is a hard working man who runs the kitchen and wants to go on a holiday

Mrs. Hum is the only one who knows about the creature. She's a traditionalist who wants things to stay the same

The followers are rather incompetent and want to be saved by the liberator

Everybody in the hotel has the thing in common that they all want change; they want something new to happen but at the same time they are scared of change and want things to stay the same. It is this duality that Mr. K challenges when he arrives to the hotel. He brings change, and therefore the hotel starts changing as well and the creature starts maturing. Every inhabitant in the hotel has to face this change