"The Occidental Hotel is a "cityâ? filmâ??I was inspired to emulate the Surrealists' sense of wandering, of flaneury, of the way a hotel and its rooms is a temporary resting place inhabited by many many people, a shared public/private space. I am interested in a creative geography of the city I've constructed. For instance, the front of the hotel is from Berlin, its interior was photographed in Copenhagen. The film offers the elliptical "scentâ? of espionage films (largely because of its Berlin locations) and offers that genre's lubricating sense of voyeurism, danger, and sexuality. My source materials are Mexican comic-book figures, and these urban photos I snapped on my honeymoon with my wife Janie Geiser in the summer of 1996.â? â??Lewis Klahr