When
it came to venal, scheming families, the Ewings had nothing on the Ceauşescus.
In the 1980s, Dallas was the only
Western television show allowed on Romania’s state-run media. Depending who you
ask, it was either programmed to instruct viewers on the evils of robber baron capitalism
or to keep them distracted from the failings of the Communist regime. Clearly,
it failed on the former score, but worked to an extent with respects to the
latter. Romanian expat Livia Ungur and her husband-artistic collaborator Sherng-lee
Huang delve into the Eastern European country’s nostalgia for the prime-time
soap in the experimental docu-hybrid Hotel
Dallas (trailer
here), which
screens during the 2016 Dallas International Film Festival.
Evidently,
a dodgy Romanian oligarch actually recreated the South Fork Ranch for his
Romanian resort, throwing in a scale Eiffel Tower to make it even more surreal.
It is there that the weary “Mr. Here” awakens, feeling strangely at home, yet
not. That is indeed Patrick Duffy, playing an uber-meta version of Bobby Ewing.
With the
help of Livia, the ten-gallon hat-wearing semi-estranged daughter of the owner
(Ilie, the sunflower oil king of Romania), Mr. Here will take a hero’s
pilgrimage to the “Endless Column,” a public sculpture created by Constantin
Brancusi. Their journey across Romania and backwards through time is
interspersed with vignettes from Ilie’s past and recreations of the Ceauşescus’ fall,
re-enacted by a cast of grade-schoolers draped in vintage Pioneer dress. As an
added bonus, we also see the commercial Larry Hagman cut in character for a
Romanian motor oil company.
Hotel Dallas is sort of the
hipster loft scene version of Chuck Norris vs. Communism (frankly, those 1980s action movies hold up quite a
bit better than Dallas, with Duffy’s
justly mocked “only-a-dream” resurrection) While Huang and Ungur are impressive
visual stylists, the implications of the film are often obscured by its
postmodern gamesmanship. It is the sort of docu-essay that needs to be broken
down scene-by-scene. Some work, others don’t.
One
thing is clear, Patrick Duffy is a heck of a good sport. Bobby Ewing is by far
his signature, bread-and-butter, claim-to-fame role, yet he gracefully sort
of-kind of reprises it under the oddest of circumstances. Often heard but
rarely seen, he provides the apostolic link that anchors all the dreamlike
flights of fancy.