So I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel in Cinemark XD: Extreme Digital Cinema™ (Seriously, Century theaters? There was no reason for you to show this movie in that format, give me back my extra $4). Wes Anderson, eight films into his eighteen year career and hes well established his own unique cinematic universe populated by a relatively consistent cast of characters. Many directors elect to do this; Tarantino has his ultra-violent, pop-culture obsessed world, Kevin Smith has his dirty-talkin view askewniverse, Peter Greenaway tosses his actors into scandalous, Baroque tapestries, etc. Andersons universe is one dominated by bright colors, permanently anachronistic wardrobes and quirky characters. Verisimilitude has never been high on his list of priorities, instead using his camera to create a vaguely nostalgic story-book reality in which everything seems idealistic and everyone talks like goddamned creative writing major. His movies and their ilk are what many people think of when the nebulous concept of independent cinema is brought up and in truth thats the milieu in which he established himself. The aesthetics of the mid-to-late 90s indie film era have long since proven to be more than marketable towards audiences who themselves wish to seem above the base and vulgar preferences of mainstream rabble while being just accessible enough...you know I forgot where I was going with this... Anyway, Grand Budapest Hotel...Ralph Fiennes stars as M. Gustave, a hotel concierge in kinda sorta Bavarian country involved romantically with one of regular patrons during the onset of some fictionalized version of WWII (I think). Wacky hijinks ensue when his aging lover dies and leaves him a precious painting, much to the outrage of her transparently evil son played by Adrien Brody and his various ungrateful relatives. Relative newcomer Tony Revolori costars as his protege Zero the Lobby Boy who ends up in a romance with pastry chef Saoirse Ronan of Hanna fame. Overall the story has the feel of a buncha cobbled together caper films and that hardly seems to matter, its a character driven film more than anything else and all the events and set pieces are just there as devices for the zany characters to react to... Fiennes as the lead serves the purpose of being unfailingly polite and unflappable in response to anything and everything that happens around him while Revoloris Zero seems to under react or fall back on decorum for the entirety of the film. Brody swears at people in a manner that seems out of place with the overall tone of the film, Jeff Goldblums lawyer character is a reasonable man trapped in a world full of cartoon characters, Willem Dafoe has a fun performance as Brodys henchman/the Wes Andersons version of Anton Chigurhr and Billy Murray gets his obligatory cameo as do many other Anderson regulars... During the majority movie, its a bit unclear as to what exact point Anderson is trying to get across. The themes are there, nostalgia for the glory days, ambiguous morality, displacement in the universe, fatalism, but it never really coalesces into a discernible personal statement until the final act of the movie, during which the storybook aesthetics are put aside and Andersons thesis is plainly and almost cruelly laid out before the audience... Visually, the film employees a lot of Andersons aforementioned standard visual conventions which comes as no surprise with Anderson regular cinematographer Robert Yeoman at work. Its perfectly fine film if youre already sold on Andersons work but is probably a poor place to start if youre not already a fan or are tying to ease into his filmography...
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 00:47:59 +0000
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