Rob and I just came back from seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel. Rob was kind of undecided about it, but I loved it. I havent seen a Wes Anderson movie before, but now I want to see others. This one was very funny, quirky, beautifully photographed. He has a fondness bordering on a fetish for straight lines, both vertical and horizontal -- Ive never seen so many horizontal tracking shots, but theyre all very smoothly done. I get the impression that the dreaded jitter-cam would be anathema to him. The action of almost every shot takes place exactly in the middle of the frame, so you really become aware of the balance and symmetry. Characters tend to not move a lot within a shot; if they have to go from point A to point B, hed rather give you a new set-up (Keaton does this quite a bit). 95 percent of this movie is shot in good old 1:37 to 1 Academy ratio, not just because it takes place in 1932, but because it permits you to get so much more energy into the visuals. (Oh, how much we lost by going to that dreadful unwieldy, ugly Cinemascope aspect ratio and other widescreen formats!) He can get characters in and out of the frame quickly, both horizontally and vertically, and boy, does he take advantage of this. A lot of the framing and pacing reminded me of a Tex Avery cartoon. (Calling Nancy Avery-Arkley.) As for the actors, I loved Ralph Fiennes as the key character, a hotel concierge who bemoans the loss of elegance in the increasingly brutal 30s as dictatorships come to power. Jeff Goldblum was wonderful as a lawyer, and a young actor named Tony Revolori (this is his first picture) is great as a bellboy who becomes Fiennes aide-de-camp. Bill Murray and F. Murray Abraham (as the now aged ex-bellboy) are wonderful. The plot has lots of twists and turns, theres a dollop of R-rated language and some cartoonish bloody violence, but mostly this film is a lot of quirky fun. The balalaika band providing the music over the end credits is great (stay all the way through those credits, too). I want to go see this again....
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 03:39:59 +0000
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