The Grand Budapest Hotel review

             Over the sweep of his career, filmmaker Wes Anderson has situated himself as the master of the minutia. When it comes to every aspect of his films, including costuming, performances, set-decoration, and camera placement, his movies have always exuded a sense of meticulous design and consideration. However, though generally well-reviewed and culturally appreciated, the thematic or emotional sincerity of his films have often been overlooked or underplayed by those in conversation with his work. And to be fair, even Anderson himself has occasionally put his storytelling on the back-burners to thoroughly explore the visual compositions of his worlds, sometimes resulting in frustratingly banal indulgences of control.

                From film to film, Anderson has oscillated between visual metaphor as a way of emotional storytelling and arch-comedy as a way of exploring character-dilemma.With his most recent film “The Grand Budapest Hotel” he seems to be working somewhere in the middle, accessing a darker sense of authenticity just beneath the whimsical world-building and the flip nature of his ironic wit.

                Ralf Fiennes stars as M. Gustave, the concierge of a famed European hotel on the eve of a barely discussed fascist takeover.  After the death of one of his wealthiest clients (Tilda Swinton), with whom he was having a long hidden affair, her sons (Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe) become disgruntled when it is revealed that she their mother has left the hotel manager with a priceless painting that had previously belonged in the family. When Gustave is then framed for her murder and put into jail, he must trust his right-hand lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) to help him escape, prove his innocents and survive the gruesome manhunt set into motion by the embittered siblings. 

                Taking place inside three separate framing devices, within three different generations, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” unfolds as a kind of multi-layered big-fish narrative. Full of interesting contradictions and historical allusions, it disguising itself as an adventurous comedy of errors, and if one wishes to view the film as just being that, it is both satisfying as a dark comedy and rousing action film, displaying some of Anderson’s most ambitious technical set-pieces yet. These low-tech but highly-choreographed scenes include a complex prison escape sequence and a shoot-out turn chase-scene that’s both evenly paced and exciting to view in it's masterful execution.  Likewise, his brand of dry, matter-of-fact dialogue is still very much present and the detailed designs of his visual spaces are pushed even farther outside of the realm naturalism. But below all of this playfulness there also exists layer of contextual melancholy that’s hidden just underneath the folktale we're being shown instead.

                Many scenes seem to purposely skim over the historical significance that exists in the background of the plot. Our two main villains are seen working with the fascist armies, gun in hand, as they ransack the hotel or when they stop trains to scan passenger’s personal documents. As Dafoe’s wolf-man like character searches for our hero, he leaves a trail of gruesome murders behind him. But even as we draw the obvious parallels to the Nazi occupation of Europe during WW2--or in this case, an Andersonian, fanciful, It's-A-Small-World maquette version of 1930's Europe--the film keeps averting our attention to the surfaces of its ‘film-ness’ in a way that seems to be saying something about the nature of memory, history, and the erosion and transformation of historical accuracy in the pursuit storytelling.

                One could choose to be frustrated by Anderson’s aloof treatment of the characters when it comes to the darker contrasts of this film, or, one can do as I have done and choose to assume that this director is making a point about the refusal to confront the ugliness of our past by way of idealized myth-making. As with all of Wes' work, if you are willing to accept the general eccentricities within “The Grand Budapest Hotel” then you will no doubt laugh at the movie’s quick humor and appreciate the craft behind its infrastructure.  However, upon reflection, you may be surprised by the movie's weighty suggestions that in your mind.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/March-2014

The Wind Rises review

                 Last weekend saw the official release of Hayao Miyazaki’s final film “The Wind Rises”, a leisurely paced WWII drama about airplane engineering, first loves, ambition and regret. It’s a sweeping melodrama, a fanciful coming of age story, and an emotionally driven historical allegory all in one, and, like many other Miyazaki films, it manages to weave in and out of these modes seamlessly, despite its slightly saggy 126 minute run-time. 

                Working as one of the last auteurs in post-Disney animation, Miyazaki films revel in an organic quietude and classical storytelling, in a time in American animation when loud, fast and 3D seems to be the most prominent aesthetic. “The Wind Rises” takes his hand-painted, reserved technique even further, with an autumnal tone that strips away most of the fantasy elements that made movies such as “Princess Mononoke” and “My Neighbor Totoro” definitive Japanese imports.

                From a young age, Jiro Horikoshi (dubbed in English by Joseph Gordon Levit) dreamed of a magical airspace where he could ride the wings of the crafts built by his hero Caproni, an Italian airplane manufacture from the early turn of the century.  Driven by these reoccurring fantasies, Jiro enrolls into engineering school, where he works late nights to accomplish his goals, with very little social interactions. Later when he and his best friend Honjo (John Krasinski) are hired by the Japanese government to help advance their aero industry and catch up with the technologies of Europe and America, Jiro must reconcile his ambitions for designing the perfect plane, while knowing his inventions will be used in massive acts of violence in the oncoming War.  

                It’s Miyazaki’s subtle power in narrative poetry that really brings to life this multi-stranded story. From early on we know that the hopeful innocents of Jiro’s goals are dimmed in the shadows of their consequences. When he meets his future wife, as he is on his way to his first big job, the serene beauty of the moment is devastated in an earthquake that derails their train and destroys the city around them. Years later, when they meet again and fall in love, their union is compromised when Nahoko (Emily Blunt) is diagnosed with tuberculosis. All the while, their bittersweet romance is gracefully juxtaposed alongside Jiro’s journey through moral tribulation as he and his colleagues reluctantly build deadly war machines for the pride of Japanese nationalism.  

                “The Wind Rises” is a complicated and beautifully executed piece of animation. The craft and attention to the water-color backgrounds and the soft touches it brings to every detail of every frame captures Miyazaki’s wistful tragedy perfectly. However, unlike many of the other releases imported from Studio Ghibli, this is not exactly a ‘fun’ movie, and though there is nothing explicitly adult about it, it’s not really intended for children either. The languid pace of the film is breathy and the scope is both intimate and spacious at the same time. Meaning, it’s safe to say that the sophisticated storytelling of this cartoon would probably have most kids under twelve shifting in their seats, and to be fair, at times, it had me checking my watch as well.  With that said, there’s nothing here that’s begging to be cut but like most movies it could probably benefit from a tighter trim.  Regardless, those who can respect an impressionistic style of animation should privilege themselves to the accumulative power of Miyazaki’s last work.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/March -2014