Very unprofessionally of me, or perhaps
aptly in Wes Anderson’s
story-within-a-story style, I will start by my review by quoting Mark Kermode’s astute review, watching The Grand Budapest Hotel is “less like
marvelling at the silent workings of a Swiss watch than goggling at the innards
of a grandfather clock, cogs and pulleys proudly displayed.” Wes Anderson is
maybe the most unwavering of the few American auteurs working today – so if you
loved his previous films, you will feel the same with this, and vice versa.
Unwavering
not in the sense of quality, The Royal
Tenenbaums was successful homebrewed lemonade spiked with melancholy, while
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is
about as meaningful as a Cath Kidson teapot. Rather, unwavering in this above-mentioned mechanical
sense. Along with narrative devices such as chapter headings and inception
style plunging into novels-within-novels-within-novels, Anderson’s aims to
flatten the image as much as possible as if watching shadow puppetry; the camera
is always placed parallel to the action and moves forcefully at right angles. Where
most films aim to submerge you in the story, Anderson for whatever reason never
wants to break that veil. On top his dialogue is just as mechanical,
unbelievable but zesty, thus quite intriguing that actors line up to work with
him considering that they are required less to act and more to become puppets –
based on Ralph Fiennes’ exquisite
performance here maybe it is a case of great craft coming from restriction.
His
films are so reliant on his charm and script, that it can really go both ways,
and one’s opinion on Anderson may stem from which film one has seen. Having
seen them all, I say Grand Budapest Hotel
is among his better, and simply because it’s an outright, actually funny,
comedy. There is an occasional clash against the humour with the misplaced faint
shadowing backdrop of war that serves to provide sentimental shock via the odd
line of expositional dialogue (it’s about as laborious to watch as that
sentence was to read), but for the most part this is almost on par with his
animation Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The sets are
devoid of authenticity, instead colourful and engrossing, the set pieces
replace tension with whimsical spectacle and joy, and the story refuses to
stick to one genre but hops from crime-caper to romance to prison breakout and
on. Whether you enjoy Anderson’s films or not, it’s good to see someone in the
mainstream adjust the filmmaking formula and tell a story with a flare for the
unusual – even if his particular strand of unusual has become his “to be
expected” aesthetic. Anderson strikes me as someone who will have read
filmmaking manuals like Robert McKee’s
Story or Syd Field’s Screenplay,
and then abandoned them, and one has to have respect for that. So even when
Anderson spouts out drivel (which in my opinion, is more often than not) I still
cry long live Wes!
- JAMES A GEORGE IS EYEWEAR'S FILM CRITIC, AND A FILM-MAKER, WITH A DEGREE FROM KINGSTON UNIVERSITY, LONDON
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