A homoerotic drama filled with heterosexual sex, SUITE 16 examines a twisted relationship between two very crippled but manipulative characters. The story of love and control is, like a train wreck, at once unwatchable and morbidly fascinating.
Chris (Antoinie Kamerling), a hustler, smashes a bottle over his friend's head after some nasty words. He drives to a hotel, picks up a woman and then tries to rob her after sex. A fight ensues and he bolts from the room, bleeding, in full sight of a bellboy. Unable to leave the hotel, he stumbles
into Suite 16, where the wheelchair-bound Glover (Pete Postelwaite) helps him stop the bleeding. Glover says the woman Chris robbed is dead and suggests his "guest" hide in the suite.
Chris tells Glover of his dream--opening a club in the Caribbean--and Glover in turn gets a hooker for Chris and asks him about the sex. Later, Glover muses about being "killed by someone who loves you." Chris discovers Glover spying on his trysts, but calms down when Glover offers to pay him for
his time. Endless sessions of cocaine-aided sex follow. Eventually, Chris threatens to leave yet again, but remains when Glover offers him a double-or-nothing deal which calls for Chris to narrate, via radio, the seduction and murder a shop girl named Helen (Geraldine Pailhas). He fails, but while
outside, he sees the woman who cut his face.
Furious, Chris leaves Glover and runs into one of his old pals. They get drunk and the friend reveals that Chris's earlier bottle-smashing incident proved fatal, and he tries to kill Chris. Surviving another fight, Chris runs back to Suite 16, where he finds Glover now dining with Helen. Helen
quickly realizes her companions are disturbed, but after rebuffing Glover's advances, she sleeps with Chris.
The next morning, as the young lovers prepare to leave, Glover hugs Helen and injects her with poison. Chris smashes Glover's head against the floor, killing him--but not before Glover says, "Thank you." Downstairs, the concierge offers Chris money, which he refuses. Chris boards a bus and smiles
at a child; behind him, a man approaches from the back of the bus.
Flemish director Dominique Deruddere's prurient film is not for the faint of heart, and it does manage to draw the viewer in with its shocking scenario based on an unholy trinity of money, sex and power. Postlethwaithe creates an intriguing portrait of an impotent man with brutal psychological
powers. Pailhas's Helen is the coquette that gives the movie a burst of much-needed charm, hope, and heroism. Deruddere's biggest problem here is trying to transform Kamerling's Chris from a menacing thug to a heroic victim. Based on his previous antics, it's hard to rehabilitate his image in the
eyes of even the most generous viewer. In the end, that's a blessing. With no emotional stake in the characters, SUITE 16 becomes easier to watch. (Violence, sexual situations, adult situations, substance abuse, profanity.) leave a comment
