The Palace

Director: Roman Polanski

Cast: Oliver Masucci, Fanny Ardant, John Cleese, Mickey Rourke

The Palace Hotel is an extraordinary castle designed at the beginning of the twentieth century and located right in the middle of a snow-covered valley in Switzerland. Every year it hosts wealthy and pampered guests from all over the world in this Gothic and fairytale atmosphere. On the eve of the year 2000 they have all gathered for an unrepeatable event. A host of waiters, porters, cooks, and receptionists are there to cater to their bizarre needs. Hansueli, the hotel’s dedicated fifty-year-old manager, inspects the staff prior to the arrival of the guests, stressing to them that while it may be the dawn of the new millennium, it is not going to be the end of the world.
What is actually about to take place is a war fought over the vagaries and eccentricities of the hotel’s guests. The various stories combine to produce an absurd and provocative black comedy. It is New Year’s Eve of 1999: not just the end of a century, but the conclusion of an entire and controversial millennium, and the threat of the Millennium Bug hovers in the air.