The Grand Budapest Hotel
Lots of films are made to appear as realistic as possible. Gravity was made very meticulously (the crew had to invent a Lightbox in order to replicate the lighting conditions in space), so detailed that although most of the film was made from CGI, nobody could tell that it was filmed inside a studio. It just looked so real. Same goes to Life of Pi. Despite the fact that most of the film was filmed inside the world’s largest wave tank, and the fact that the main actor didn’t know how to swim, and that the animals used in the film weren’t actually on the set, the whole thing looked very real. Its not just sci-fi films either. The Wolf of Wall Street, that wasn’t a big adventure film, but the visual effects were “almost perfectly seamless” as well. Even television shows are cashing in on this.
Which brings me on to Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Because this isn’t a film where realism is prioritised, but rather manipulated. Everybody knows that the sequence where the two main characters speed downs a snowy mountain littered with former Winter Olympic venues (cue lots and lots of havoc) and ducks to avoid slalom posts was about as unrealistic as it gets, but I still enjoyed it because of its eccentricity. Same goes to the museum death scene of the lawyer and many more.
But if I had to describe the film in one word, I would call it quirky. Mr. Gustave, the film’s protagonist certainly embodies this spirit. He’s very meticulous, often shouting at his colleagues. Fastidious too (in an eccentric way), often requesting people to do absurd things, but at the same time, he applies perfume very liberally to himself throughout the film and sleeps with various elderly guests (“When you’re younger it’s all fillet steak, but as you get older you have to move on to the cheaper cuts — more flavourful, so they say.”). The timid Zero and evil assassins balance this bizarreness brilliantly. There’s a reason why Anderson works with the same set of actors-they just compliment the film so well with their on-screen personalities. Everybody seems so assured and confident, so kudos to the actors here.
However, the arguably most assured person on the set would be someone who doesn’t appear on the set at all, which is the director Anderson himself. Anderson’s signature flourishes are all here: his unbelievably symmetrical compositions and candy-coloured sets as well as brilliant cinematography (enchanting compositions too) make this film fascinating to watch. Its a bit like admiring intricately woven Persian fabrics. Everything’s choreographed very precisely with fanatical attention to detail too (I especially liked the scene where Gustave walks, talking to Zero, while barking orders at actors whose blocking are almost impeccable). But the film’s greatest achievement is blending together fastidiousness with farce. The set design, from the patisseries to the prison and that nine foot tall miniature hotel model, is so well thought out and intricate you can immediately recognise that this is an Anderson film. But on the other hand, these visuals can seem very elaborate and theatrical (those fighting scenes seemed a bit melodramatic to me), and couple this with some holes in the plot (What are the “mysterious circumstances” that killed Madame D in the end? How does M. Gustave try to prove his innocence?) result in a film that slightly isolates the viewer. Its a bit like watching a comedy through a pane of glass though-yes, the experience is slightly diminished by the window, but if the comedy is good enough, you ignore the fact that the glass exists.
So despite these flaws, (the characters don’t look that scared when they’re storming down a mountain on an uncontrollable sled; also, all the events for winter olympics events happen to be laid out on one straight line) the idiosyncratic visuals, eccentric characters and the general upbeats of the film means that the film is entertaining.
If we compare films to restaurants, big-budget blockbusters would be Michelin-star winning restaurants, and the Grand Budapest would be a cosseting family-run bistro. Both of them are equally good, but sometimes, you’d rather go to the bistro because of its warmth and quirkiness.
This film feels more “cinematic” and playful than anything I’ve watched in past years. Like the hotel itself, The Grand Budapest is an experience, an event. Things are exaggerated, but in a precise (for the lack of a better word) German sort of way. The dark humour, sometimes brash language, and sombre undertones (the unbelievably orange interior of the hotel in the 70s, for example, is I believe a reference to Soviet communistic architecture)-the film’s plot is based on the melancholic memoirs of Stefan Zweig, means that this film is more arthouse than all-ages, but the visuals are so pretty you can’t help but forgive it. This is the most Anderonian film I’ve seen, and dare I say it, his best due to its accessibility and suaveness.
Anderson’s film are in a class of their own. “Five degrees removed from reality,” described Anderson about his idiosyncratic world. Go visit it. Its absolutely brilliant.