Liz Beson, Illustrator
All discussions of Wes Anderson or his films begin with a mention or discussion of his idiosyncratic style. Anderson’s films are known for their artistic qualities: the sets, the costumes, the props, the cinematography. What makes all of these qualities so appealing in Anderson’s films is that they support a personal dialogue between filmmaker and audience. It is incredibly easy to fall in love with a particular place or time period when you gain an almost reverent perception of the world that exists within a film in which the audience feels that what they are seeing onscreen is a direct reflection of the filmmaker and their personality. Woody Allen and Terrence Malick are two American filmmakers who are most well-known for transmitting their personality in their films in this way, though Wes Anderson is probably most well-known in the indie scene.
Anderson’s newest film, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” wholly deserves to be spoken about in a discussion of this nature (in the context of modern auteurs), as it is one of Anderson’s finest works.
This film will likely receive the same criticism that Anderson’s other films have received. These criticisms, which typically detail pretension and overstylization, can be applied to any of his works. “Grand Budapest Hotel” is different, however. It flips familiar tropes in Western cinema (violence and oversexualization) and turns them on their heads. The film is filled with comedic, grotesque violence. Fingers and heads are chopped off, animals are killed, and, in more than one scene, characters punch each other. Yet the absurd nature of such comedic violence says something: primarily that Western cinema, as a culture, needs to return to meaningful violence, not large-scale CGI and special-effects laden violence characteristically found in the newest Michael Bay movie.
Framed as a story within a story within a story, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” plays as a revisionist fantasy of World War II. The backdrop of the film, set in the present, the 1960s, as well as the 1930s, is the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka, and the large hotel contained within it: the Grand Budapest Hotel. Furthermore, the film takes us behind the scenes and introduces M. Gustave H. (played by Ralph Fiennes) as the hotel’s concierge and Zero Mustafa (portrayed by Tony Revolori) as the hotel’s lobby boy, the film’s primary characters. After one patron of the hotel passes away, the story arc follows the main characters as they attempt to gain control of “Boy With Apple,” a painting that belonged to the deceased.
The film is introduced through a book, which is read by a girl in a cemetery in the present day. As the girl reads the book, we see the chapters of the book as title cards throughout the film. It is so explicit throughout the film that what the audience is seeing is a story that the film gains a meta quality. Not only are there stories within stories within stories, but the representation of those stories onscreen are explicitly playing to the fact that the audience knows that they are, essentially, also reading Anderson’s story.
And the results of his efforts are astounding. Some scenes in the main (1930s) timeline are shot so impeccably that they reek of cinematic history. The lighting, for example, that hits Zero’s face during some shots is reminiscent of (so-called “timeless”) shots in classic black-and-white films, slightly out of focus but nevertheless beautiful.
The film grapples, as a whole, with incredibly large issues like sexuality and Nazism, but deals with them in comedic or personal ways that deflect criticism such that the audience is forced to ask questions about them in the present. For example, M. Gustave’s bisexuality is dealt with in a number of occasions, one of the most hilarious being a conversation with one of M. Gustave’s fellow prison inmates, Pinky.
Pinky: “Me and the boys talked it over. We think you are a really straight fellow.”
M. Gustave: “Well, I’ve never been accused of that before, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Grand Budapest Hotel” is not merely Anderson’s creation. It is also the creation of the early 20th century author Stefan Zweig, whose autobiography inspired the film. Anderson is bringing Zweig to contemporary cultural consciousness, in a way that punctures the mainstream.
To see Anderson move to the past instead of the present is refreshing and beautiful. With the exception of 2012’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” all of Anderson’s films are predominately set in the present, and nearly all meditate on the (familiar) trope of familial conflict. Anderson seems to feel at home in the “Grand Budapest” timeline that occurs in the 1960s, the time period of “Moonrise Kingdom”; however, to see him treat a (overrepresented, it could be argued) time period like the 1930s with such melancholy and personality is so refreshingly beautiful that I could not help but smile. Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack fits the mood of the film perfectly and is a pleasure to listen to, even outside of the film’s context.
That is just one reason why “Grand Budapest” feels so familiar and yet so unfamiliar. Familiar faces dot the cast. Many of the cameos appeared unnecessary but were refreshingly self-aware at the same time. Their absurdity was humorous — for example, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray play hotel-related roles, but at the same time, they are themselves and instantly recognizable to the audience (they hardly shed their accents but still seem themselves).
If subtlety is beauty, Anderson is somehow both the fool and the master. The entire film is stylized nearly to the point of self-referentiality or, furthermore, self-parody. However, the subtleties of this Andersonian creation are what in effect make it so brilliant. Everything from the food to the typography to the color schemes are so well-controlled that Wes Anderson is indisputably doing some of his best work. And what a sight that is.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a concoction (like those in the film) in and of itself: rich and deeply satisfying.
Schaffer is a member of
the class of 2016.
