Nightshift: An Uncanny Witness

Nightshift (1981) is Robina Rose’s third film and her first feature-length film. The ‘night shift’ referred to in the title is that of a receptionist at the Portobello Hotel in Notting Hill, where the director was working part-time. The film draws directly on her own experiences: her duties, her downtime, and her encounters with people. At that time, the Portobello Hotel was home to artists and musicians who stayed there for long periods of time. It was, in London, the equivalent of the Chelsea Hotel in New York or the Hôtel Louisiane in Paris.

Nightshift is less a narrative film than a film of impressions and atmospheres, characterised by great formal mastery. Each shot seems to be composed like a painting. Shot on 16 mm, a few years after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London, the film marks a new stage in Robina Rose’s career: for the first time, she surrounded herself with a technical crew. They worked on a voluntary basis. The American director of photography – and filmmaker – Jon Jost supplied cheap film stock, whilst the hotel guests were played by the director’s friends from the London underground scene.

The role of the night receptionist is played by Pamela Rooke, alias Jordan, an iconic figure of the punk movement. She appears dressed and made-up just as she was in real life, when she worked as a sales assistant at Sex, Vivienne Westwood’s shop on King’s Road. Her face seems to have stepped straight out of a Renaissance painting: red curls, scarlet lips, her skin and eyebrows covered by a white veil. Impenetrable, this masked face seems to shield her from the night world.

A silent witness, she watches the comings and goings of the eccentric clientele. Throughout the night, she utters just one word, over the telephone, and without the slightest emotion: ‘Reception’. As though she has gradually become one with her role, reduced to an automaton. Indeed, she carries out her duties in silence, with a hypnotic slowness. Recording a booking. Handing a key to a guest. Wrapping croissants in cellophane. Counting the coins in the till. Triggering the film’s sublime soundtrack (composed by Simon Jeffes of the Penguin Café Orchestra) by inserting a coin into a music box. When she vacuums, the hum of the machine gradually transforms into a mystical chant, as if the object were coming to life. The richly layered sound design lends these gestures a sensual and ritualistic dimension. Their apparent triviality is rendered sacred. They oscillate between attention and alienation, reminiscent of those in Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman.

At times, the receptionist seems invisible to the guests, who barely seem to notice her. At other times, they address her in long monologues, whilst she remains off-screen, a silent witness. She becomes a mirror, a projection. Yet the camera constantly follows her point of view: it is through her wandering gaze that we encounter a collection of free spirits who frequent the hotel.

In this confined space, a sense of unease gradually settles: the shots repeat themselves, time drags on, and an uncanny atmosphere imbues this endless night. Having remained expressionless throughout the film, a faint smile crosses the receptionist’s face at the end of her shift. It reminds me of the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa. She seems to come back to life as day breaks. When she finally opens the glass doors and steps out to breathe in the morning air, the film, in turn, sets us free. We breathe a sigh of relief with her.

Callisto McNulty 

Biography
Callisto Mc Nulty is a French and Swiss filmmaker, born in Paris in 1990. A graduate of Central Saint Martins (Bachelor of Arts) and Goldsmiths, University of London, her research takes the form of films and videos, performances and publishing projects. She directed two documentaries, Delphine et Carole, Insoumuses (2019) that was shown at the Forum Berlinale and to 30 festivals including San Sebastian Film Festival, FID Marseille, MOMA and La Muraille (2025) that premiered in Visions du réel.