Oh, very, very good. It has that vision thing, of course - it's unmistakeably a Wes Anderson film, and at this point you have to doubt whether Anderson's even capable of making a film that doesn't feel unavoidably like one of his. But it also shades darker than anything he's done before,[*] as well as, probably more than any of his other films - and he's been moving more and more in this direction over his last few - successfully creating a tone, mood and structuring that brings the viewer in and leaves us in no doubt that we're meant to feel the poignancy and humanity of the film's situations and central protagonists (here Gustave H, and the bellboy Zero).
If Tenenbaums and Life Aquatic laid down markers and set the tenor, The Darjeeling Limited showed off the fruits of a clearer sincerity, Fantastic Mr Fox's mediation via animation and animal characters counterintuitively deepened the immediacy of the affect yet further, and Moonrise Kingdom came close to perfection in its sharp-eyed preciosity and sentimentality, then Grand Budapest seems an apogee of sorts in the development of Anderson's craft, as well as possibly pointing to its future - there's a confidence and ease to the way that it nests its stories within stories, wheels each new character on to stage (invariably with a front-on introductory head shot, akin to a magician's reveal as we delight at the appearance of another old favourite, and only later marvel at how profligate the film can be with actors of this talent and idiosyncrasy, in many cases giving them only the briefest of cameos), whips us from setting to memorable setting, sprinkled all the way through with what we can now recognise as genuine feeling and emotion - moreover, genuineness to which all of the artifice and stylistic staging now seems at least partially in service, and certainly with which there's a true synthesis, rather than the two - feeling and art - appearing, as they've sometimes been wont to do in his older films, in tension.
It moves at a rapid pace, even screwball; the antagonists (primarily Brody's Dmitri and Dafoe's Jopling) are dastardly; all of the characters immediately inhabit their designated roles and more than hold their own amidst the colour and movement and fantasy of the world of the film. It's not 'realistic' - though the only really cartoonish sequence is the chase down a series of winter olympic courses - but it feels real, which is only right and how it should be.
(w/ Jade)
[*] Caveat - I haven't seen his first, Bottle Rocket.
If Tenenbaums and Life Aquatic laid down markers and set the tenor, The Darjeeling Limited showed off the fruits of a clearer sincerity, Fantastic Mr Fox's mediation via animation and animal characters counterintuitively deepened the immediacy of the affect yet further, and Moonrise Kingdom came close to perfection in its sharp-eyed preciosity and sentimentality, then Grand Budapest seems an apogee of sorts in the development of Anderson's craft, as well as possibly pointing to its future - there's a confidence and ease to the way that it nests its stories within stories, wheels each new character on to stage (invariably with a front-on introductory head shot, akin to a magician's reveal as we delight at the appearance of another old favourite, and only later marvel at how profligate the film can be with actors of this talent and idiosyncrasy, in many cases giving them only the briefest of cameos), whips us from setting to memorable setting, sprinkled all the way through with what we can now recognise as genuine feeling and emotion - moreover, genuineness to which all of the artifice and stylistic staging now seems at least partially in service, and certainly with which there's a true synthesis, rather than the two - feeling and art - appearing, as they've sometimes been wont to do in his older films, in tension.
It moves at a rapid pace, even screwball; the antagonists (primarily Brody's Dmitri and Dafoe's Jopling) are dastardly; all of the characters immediately inhabit their designated roles and more than hold their own amidst the colour and movement and fantasy of the world of the film. It's not 'realistic' - though the only really cartoonish sequence is the chase down a series of winter olympic courses - but it feels real, which is only right and how it should be.
(w/ Jade)
[*] Caveat - I haven't seen his first, Bottle Rocket.
