(Wes Anderson, 2014)
With every film, no matter where or when they're set, Wes Anderson only gets more...Wes Anderson.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fantasia of old Europe, set in the fictional Central European country of Zubrowka in the early 20th Century. Only that story is a story within a story within a story, of course. That story is told in flashback by the elderly owner of the titular hotel, Mr Mustafa (F Murray Abraham) to a writer (Jude Law) in the 1980s, when the establishment is fading and somewhat chintzy. The key character in this tale is Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel's celebrated, eccentric concierge during its glory years. He sleeps with a series of wealthy elderly women guests, guaranteeing their continued custom, and the death of one Madame D (Tilda Swinton) kicks off the plot.
She leaves Gustave a priceless painting, her son (Adrian Brody) objects, and with his lapdog (Willem Dafoe) up to no good, Gustave is imprisoned for the murder of the old lady. This leaves his lobby boy protege Zero (Tony Revolori), Mr Mustafa's younger self to help with his escape, while he tries to keep the immense hotel running and enjoy his new relationship with lovely baker Agatha (Saoirse Ronan).
This allows a rambling, often hilarious story which includes prison break elements, chases, love scenes, gunfights, and loads of character comedy.
As usual with Anderson, the visuals here are impeccable; beautiful, exceptionally detailed, fabulously composed and textured. The whole thing looks like it was shot inside a faberge egg, such is its lushness and depth of colour. Anderson plays with aspect ratios depending on time period, and Alexadre Desplaat's score buoys the whole thing enjoyably along.
It is perhaps Anderson's funniest film. Fiennes is hilarious as the camp, knowingly suave Gustave, but Anderson is unafraid of giving him jokes based upon this plummy-voiced symbol of civilisation swearing suddenly, and there are some brilliant sight gags alongside the usual deadpan drollery. The likes of Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Murray take small roles, giving the film a rich, layered feeling.
It even resonates in a way not always true of Anderson's work. The ending is melancholic but fitting.
If that ending and resonance doesn't linger long afterwards, other elements do: that beautiful palette, some of the performances, and that unique Anderson tone.
Showing posts with label Wes Anderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wes Anderson. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
MOONRISE KINGDOM
(Wes Anderson, 2012)
With his seventh film, Wes Anderson finds the perfect story and setting for his singular style and sensibility.
The result is a magical comic fairytale, shot through with his familiar deadpan melancholy and ably performed by a game, starry cast.
The two leads, however, are young unknowns. They are Sam Shakusky (Jared Gillman), a young orphan who falls in love with Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) while based with his Khaki Scout troop on the Island of New Penzance, off the coast of New England in Summer 1965. Names - the names of characters, places, even labels and brands - are crucial in the symphony Wes Anderson creates in each of his films, adding detail and a precise texture to his world which feels quite unlike any other.
Here that world is largely seen through the prism of typically intense Anderson children. Both principals are outsiders, both serious, both sad. They become penpals and resolve to run away from unhappy family lives together, and what follows is a lovely natural idyll, with shades of Badlands in it's scenes of a young couple creating their own little world in a natural setting.
The adult world our couple are fleeing is represented in the form of Suzy's attorney parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) whose marriage is falling apart, partly due to her affair with the Island Sheriff (Bruce Willis). Then there is Sam's Scout Master (Edward Norton), struggling to control his troupe. This side of the story is suffused in sadness, which comes in scenes where their complex adult problems are revealed in their faces and conversations. These are lonely people, their exchanges and small, everyday agonies contrasted with those of Sam and Suzy. They too will probably end up as sorrowful as their elders, Anderson seems to say, if they are denied the understanding and love they have found with one another.
That much might be enough - this may be the directors most moving, emotional film, the aching nostalgia and feeling for childhood's end adding to that - but there are also a few dozen great comic ideas here typical of Anderson. The scout troupe, run like an army, offers great dry comedy and a series of lovely visual gags. Bob Balaban pops up as a narrator offering context and portentousness, Tilda Swinton steps straight out of a Powell & Pressburger film as the blue-clad "Social Services", and Anderon's use of music (largely Hank Williams and Benjamin Britten here) is as superb as ever.
Best of all, much of the film is shot on location, meaning that it's somewhat looser than Anderson's usual approach allows; Mother Nature resists the control evident in his miss en scene. Instead there are lovely landscapes and shots which make the most of the possibilities of the forest and the ocean.
It all hangs together with impeccable style and no little emotional weight, suggesting, for all that his detractors insist that Anderson has to grow up, that he is at his finest and most natural when he is addressing childhood, as he does here.
With his seventh film, Wes Anderson finds the perfect story and setting for his singular style and sensibility.
The result is a magical comic fairytale, shot through with his familiar deadpan melancholy and ably performed by a game, starry cast.
The two leads, however, are young unknowns. They are Sam Shakusky (Jared Gillman), a young orphan who falls in love with Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) while based with his Khaki Scout troop on the Island of New Penzance, off the coast of New England in Summer 1965. Names - the names of characters, places, even labels and brands - are crucial in the symphony Wes Anderson creates in each of his films, adding detail and a precise texture to his world which feels quite unlike any other.
Here that world is largely seen through the prism of typically intense Anderson children. Both principals are outsiders, both serious, both sad. They become penpals and resolve to run away from unhappy family lives together, and what follows is a lovely natural idyll, with shades of Badlands in it's scenes of a young couple creating their own little world in a natural setting.
The adult world our couple are fleeing is represented in the form of Suzy's attorney parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) whose marriage is falling apart, partly due to her affair with the Island Sheriff (Bruce Willis). Then there is Sam's Scout Master (Edward Norton), struggling to control his troupe. This side of the story is suffused in sadness, which comes in scenes where their complex adult problems are revealed in their faces and conversations. These are lonely people, their exchanges and small, everyday agonies contrasted with those of Sam and Suzy. They too will probably end up as sorrowful as their elders, Anderson seems to say, if they are denied the understanding and love they have found with one another.
That much might be enough - this may be the directors most moving, emotional film, the aching nostalgia and feeling for childhood's end adding to that - but there are also a few dozen great comic ideas here typical of Anderson. The scout troupe, run like an army, offers great dry comedy and a series of lovely visual gags. Bob Balaban pops up as a narrator offering context and portentousness, Tilda Swinton steps straight out of a Powell & Pressburger film as the blue-clad "Social Services", and Anderon's use of music (largely Hank Williams and Benjamin Britten here) is as superb as ever.
Best of all, much of the film is shot on location, meaning that it's somewhat looser than Anderson's usual approach allows; Mother Nature resists the control evident in his miss en scene. Instead there are lovely landscapes and shots which make the most of the possibilities of the forest and the ocean.
It all hangs together with impeccable style and no little emotional weight, suggesting, for all that his detractors insist that Anderson has to grow up, that he is at his finest and most natural when he is addressing childhood, as he does here.
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