Absence of substance

Rating: 5/10 (24 September 2017)

I have to admit I don't understand the appeal of Wes Anderson's films. It's not just that I don't like them very much - I'm not a great fan of superhero movies either, but I can comprehend the sensibility that they appeal to. But Anderson's movies, so widely feted, leave be not only cold, but mystified. 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', for example, conjures up beautifully a comically rendered vision of Mitteleuropean splendour fading into Nazism and communism in a way that should appeal to me. But in that world, Anderson tells a one-note story devoid of any human depth. To contrast, consider a movie like 'Delicatessan', for example, which is also set in a tragi-comic alternative world; but which tells a story full of very real emotion. To me, the richness of that movie's reality is light years away from the complete shallowness of Anderson's work. As I said, it's as if there's something that's sailing completely over my head; either that, or there's an audience completely unconcerned by the absence of substance. But I'm not part of it.