Artful in an age of disposable movies

Rating: 7/10 (15 April 2014)

Wes Anderson is an artist. He doesn't see film as a purely commercial product, but as a craft, something to build, a personal vision---art. Anderson's film art can take on the feel of a picture book or an elaborate model and perhaps no film better exemplifies this approach than his new release, Grand Budapest Hotel.
Writing a review of a Wes Anderson film inevitably comes down to a judgment: Are his films a quirky, obsessively arranged delights, or are they compulsive, silly and shallow forms of artifice? In many ways I'm split. Anderson is not a bread and butter filmmaker. In some ways it is unfair to judge his work by normal standards because he's not trying to make ordinary films. Anderson takes pride in high style---style so thick that it's a fog, style that in some ways becomes more the subject of his films than any character. Style for the sake of style, of perhaps more accurately, style for the delight of style. Grand Budapest Hotel is perhaps his most stylistically potent concoction. The compositions, the costumes, the sets, the dialogue, the sequencing, the music, the structure, the cameos, the flat, slightly ironic acting style, everything is stamped with the Wes Anderson seal with the volume cranked up to new levels. This, in a way, makes the film very fun. It moves fast and has delightful visuals. Odd bits of humor are peppered in, and the characters, while sketchy, are evocative. But in all the artifice of this world it is easy to forget that in Anderson's earlier worlds there was somewhat less artifice and a bit more heart. Bottle Rocket was an empathetic study of loserdom, and encouraged viewers to ponder what the term loser might actually mean. Rushmore was a funny but tender and detailed character study about a deeply imperfect playwriting prodigy (who, it turns out, is a quirky and smart, but otherwise normal adolescent). In this new film it is easy to miss any depth for the cloud of fun style.
Something interesting is happening to this film---it is making quite a bit of money. Perhaps this reflects something about our era. While Wes has always done well with grey hairs looking for something light and grown-up and hipsters who worship his artfulness, it seems the artistic void in current film is starting to boost Anderson's art, financially. For movie goers sick of unconsidered visuals, plastered with CGI special effects that all start to look the same, Wes' craftsmanship is a good elixir. The care, the sense of fun, the charm, the very personal touch of Anderson's work feels particularly needed at this time in film history. And people seem to be responding. Although in some ways Anderson is the height of trendiness, in many ways he's old fashioned. He loves models. He refuses to worship technology. His idea of a hero is not super.
The center of this film is Ralph Fiennes' Gustave H., a concierge extraordinaire, and mentor of the young Lobby Boy, Zero(Tony Revolori). His character stands out, not only for his showy quirks, but because Fiennes plays him without the dead-pan irony, so typical of performances in Anderson films, which surround him. While this film provides the expected fun, storybook escapism, with a Roald Dahl flair, there is perhaps something deeper here---Gustave H. is a man who clings to an era in the past. He's not a young man, but he's not clinging to his youth, he fancies an era and way of doing things and a way of carrying one's self that is more late Victorian than modern (this film takes place between the world wars). He lives by a different, older code of conduct, and this choice makes him excel and stand out in his surroundings. In the world of the Grand Budapest Hotel, progress isn't such a great thing. We see her in 1968, as the film opens, far past her prime, ugly, run down and a bit Soviet-looking. The film could be seen as a cautionary tale of the idolatry of progress. In our current age we obsess and cling to our progress---most of it technological things like tablet computers, cell phones, and genetic engineering, but some social, such as political correctness. This isn't the futurism of postwar America---in current form we brag of our progress with a different tone, and long gone is the optimism of that era. Whereas people of postwar America believed in the future and the positive impact of progress, we now look at the future with jaded skepticism as we brag and exaggerate our contributions to human progress. In this era, there seems to be an underground world of Gustave H's---people who carry themselves as though they are in an older more refined era, whether they can personally recall that era or not. It is a stance of personal preference but also of principal. In his own way Wes Anderson is one of these people--- people who dream of a more principled past age in reaction to our own lack of principal. If such a more principled era ever truly existed, or if every era was plagued by horrific shortcomings is beyond the point--- such yearnings are the result of humility and belief that the future can be as wonderful as an imagined past.
7 and 1/2 stars.