The Grand Budapest Hotel
"You're looking so well darling, you really are. I don't know what sort of cream they put on you down at the morgue but, I want some." (M. Gustave /Ralph Finnes)
Twenty years in, there is something about the perfectly crafted worlds created by Wes Anderson in his films that invites as much uneasiness as comfort. As much I love his curatorial bent, I was wondering if his films like The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited were becoming less than the sum of their meticulously detailed parts.
These doubts did not keep me from enjoying Anderson's most recent films, Moonrise Kingdom and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. It occurred to me that I like Anderson's formula the same way I love seeing Busby Berkely, Hitchcock, Fellini, Scorsese and Woody Allen cover a lot of the same ground in their films. If Anderson films all have great soundtracks, period furniture, ridiculous missions, characters with daddy issues and Bill Murray, who am I to complain?
No, the discomfort I feel has more to do with thinking about the implications of these hermetically sealed worlds in Anderson's body of work. I can't think of any artist who combines such an outwardly twee and fastidious façade with such melancholy and anarchy. There may well be better examples, but when I watch his films the phrase "the illusion of control" keeps running through my mind. What are these characters and environments holding at bay? What is Anderson fending off?
Anyway, what of his latest film? The structure of The Grand Budapest Hotel is kind of perfect for Anderson. It's a fish tale and it's also a story within a story within a story. There is thus a built-in allowance for him to create his own little world, only this time the scope is on a much larger scale. In previous films, Anderson managed to transform Houston into a New England prep school, crafted the perfect J.D. Salinger version of New York City and brought an L.L. Bean catalogue to life as backdrop for a sweet love story. This time Anderson and production designer, Adam Stockhausen, have Stefan Zweig's pre-war Vienna as inspiration for their incredible sets.
We first view the Grand Budapest Hotel in a state of disrepair in all of its brown and orange glory in the late '60's. Set in the far, far, far, far fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka, the film opens with a young writer (Jude Law) befriending the owner of this once magnificent establishment. His name is Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) and he recalls over dinner the story of how he came into possession of this prize.
Tony Revolori plays Young Zero and, like so many of Anderson's preternaturally mature young characters, is guided by a mentor as he negotiates his way through his career and love life. Ralph Finnes plays Monsieur Gustave, the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel, with élan. He puts his staff through a number of eccentric rituals (with another trademark Anderson montage) to assure the hotel operates like a precision time piece.
If The Grand Budapest Hotel is any indication, a concierge stands at the pinnacle of the service industry and M. Gustave evidently services his clients very well indeed. One very old and very, very wealthy client, Madame Celine Villenueve Desgoffe und Taxi left a valuable painting to him in her will. Tilda Swinton is almost unrecognisable as Madame D. Needless to say, her son, Dmitri (Adrien Brody), and the rest of her family are none too pleased.
M. Gustave, aided by Zero, steals the painting and returns to the Grand Budapest Hotel to hide it in the safe. On their return, Gustave made a pact with Zero naming him as heir. While this was taking place, Dmitri conspired to frame Gustave for the murder of his mother using the false testimony of one of her servants. Unbeknownst to Gustave, or Dmitri, his mother made a second will that was to go into effect in the event of her murder. In this second will, Gustave was left everything.
Gustave is sent to prison where he soon adapts rather nicely. One of things I love, love, love about Anderson is how he wedges the colloquial Texas slang and attitude of his youth in his films, no matter what the time, or setting. I certainly did not expect to hear the term "candy ass" in a film set in Europe in the 1930's, but coming from the lips of Finnes it was more funny than it should have been. In any case, Gustave is soon sprung from the comically forbidding Zubrowka prison and dashes off with Zero to prove his innocence.
The backdrop for this farce is the gathering storm of war in Europe as an unnamed fascist country is menacing neighbouring Zubrowka. Their jack-booted presence may have served as a Deus ex machina in leading to the discovery of the second will and delivering Gustave to safety, but the rise of fascists meant the death of this old, beautiful world. As Old Zero sadly concluded, M. Gustave was from another time and did not survive happily into a new, uglier world. Neither did Zero, it seems.
I don't exactly think that Anderson mourns for the old days in the same way that Stefan Zweig, or M. Gustave did, but I can see a connection between them. Maybe that's why I am so fond of Anderson, myself. The past can seem so sad and wonderful that the order we impose on it in looking back is a way of coping with the all-too-chaotic and frightening present. This is a very long-winded way to say- I love The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Tony Revolori plays Young Zero and, like so many of Anderson's preternaturally mature young characters, is guided by a mentor as he negotiates his way through his career and love life. Ralph Finnes plays Monsieur Gustave, the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel, with élan. He puts his staff through a number of eccentric rituals (with another trademark Anderson montage) to assure the hotel operates like a precision time piece.
If The Grand Budapest Hotel is any indication, a concierge stands at the pinnacle of the service industry and M. Gustave evidently services his clients very well indeed. One very old and very, very wealthy client, Madame Celine Villenueve Desgoffe und Taxi left a valuable painting to him in her will. Tilda Swinton is almost unrecognisable as Madame D. Needless to say, her son, Dmitri (Adrien Brody), and the rest of her family are none too pleased.
M. Gustave, aided by Zero, steals the painting and returns to the Grand Budapest Hotel to hide it in the safe. On their return, Gustave made a pact with Zero naming him as heir. While this was taking place, Dmitri conspired to frame Gustave for the murder of his mother using the false testimony of one of her servants. Unbeknownst to Gustave, or Dmitri, his mother made a second will that was to go into effect in the event of her murder. In this second will, Gustave was left everything.
Gustave is sent to prison where he soon adapts rather nicely. One of things I love, love, love about Anderson is how he wedges the colloquial Texas slang and attitude of his youth in his films, no matter what the time, or setting. I certainly did not expect to hear the term "candy ass" in a film set in Europe in the 1930's, but coming from the lips of Finnes it was more funny than it should have been. In any case, Gustave is soon sprung from the comically forbidding Zubrowka prison and dashes off with Zero to prove his innocence.
The backdrop for this farce is the gathering storm of war in Europe as an unnamed fascist country is menacing neighbouring Zubrowka. Their jack-booted presence may have served as a Deus ex machina in leading to the discovery of the second will and delivering Gustave to safety, but the rise of fascists meant the death of this old, beautiful world. As Old Zero sadly concluded, M. Gustave was from another time and did not survive happily into a new, uglier world. Neither did Zero, it seems.
I don't exactly think that Anderson mourns for the old days in the same way that Stefan Zweig, or M. Gustave did, but I can see a connection between them. Maybe that's why I am so fond of Anderson, myself. The past can seem so sad and wonderful that the order we impose on it in looking back is a way of coping with the all-too-chaotic and frightening present. This is a very long-winded way to say- I love The Grand Budapest Hotel.
