FFS Movie #3: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson's most highly ranked movie on Rotten Tomatoes, topping off my theme of the highest ranked, Anderson-directed movies on Rotten Tomatoes that I haven't seen. This one received a 91% by the critics. I actually didn't realize this until now, but apparently it did get some relatively unfavorable reviews, including this one:

I think this review hit the nail right on the head by calling it a "dollhouse dramedy," because doll-like is exactly what this movie oozes -- bright colors, sharp camera movements, methodical and angular and seriously intricate set design, and long shots to make the characters look like figurines -- and I think that is exactly what makes this movie (all of his movies, really, but this one in particular) so charming, quaint, and yes, quirky. I personally agree more with this review:

I chose to watch this movie last because I wanted to see what distinguished each movie from the next in terms of ratings, and this one did not disappoint! It was, I think, his most action-packed, complex (because of the amount of subplots interweaving different characters through different time periods), and raunchy (as raunchy as Wes Anderson can be, that is). It's fantastic. 

This is a good, concise summary of the movie, extremely watered down. There are many more subplots of Zero's, Gustave's, and others', and the whole movie is kind of bookended by Jude Law storytelling his encounter with old Zero storytelling his past with Gustave, which is then cut back and forth from for the rest of the movie until it is wrapped up at the end. It's so complicated and sharp that I think I need to watch it again without taking notes to make sure I picked up on everything. 

Like I previously mentioned, this movie seems to be the most dollhouse like of all of his movies. Every camera motion was so snappy and angular, and the set design really was like a map where each room leads to another which leads you up/down an elevator to another room which leads you to an adjacent room which leads you out the door to a very angular street with angular cars that have sharp turns that lead you to more angular buildings. It was all very neat and tidy looking. In terms of camera movements, I noticed a lot of pans. Often, it was when a character arrived unannounced somewhere and took the others by surprise. The pans were almost always composed of 2 180 degree pans: one from the surpriser to the surprisee, and one back. For example, Gustave and Zero marched into the will-reading for Gustave's dead lover, going unnoticed until his name was read in her will instead of her family members' names. When he timidly raised his hand in the back of the room at the mention of his name, the camera panned between his bewildered face and those of the incredulous relatives. These pans went in circles, so the camera never panned left to right and then back right to left, if that makes sense. I thought this was a neat touch because it really oriented the viewer in the room while simultaneously disorienting her with the quick motions and blurring images. 

There were also a few tilts that added to the angular relation of everything to one another; everything was straight up and down or side to side. One that caught my eye was when Gustave called up to a hotel worker from the street out front. The camera tilted up to the hotel worker who promptly leaned out of the picturesque little window (so goofy that he was just waiting up there listening to be summoned) to affirmatively answer Gustave's request. The reason this camera movement moment was so noteworthy is because it reminded me of my favorite moment from another one his movies: Moonrise Kingdom. The little girl runs away from home and her mother, holding a megaphone, leans out of the first story window and angles it up to the second story window to address her husband with it. "Does it concern you that your daughter has run away from home?" she asked, to which her husband aptly replied down to her, "that's a loaded question." It's just so curt and such a toss-away exchange, and that sort of irreverence for  he moment at hand makes it so ridiculous. That high-level-to-low-level interaction is just very striking in his movies, especially because the camera moves so quickly. 

The camera is also always directly head-on to a character, or capturing them at a 90 degree angle, exactly profiling them. This also really builds that storybook, dollhouse feel, and I haven't noticed this in his other movies. I think I should re-watch them and look for this. When Willem Dafoe's character is speaking with the sister of his target, the camera cuts back and forth from medium shot of Dafoe to medium shot of the sister -- you never see them in the same frame. When the initial narrator (Jude Law) and the aged Zero are talking over dinner, we either see them cut back and forth from medium shot to medium shot or from the side. Later on, when Gustave and the other prisoners and plotting their escape, the camera cuts back and forth from the prisoners and Gustave to the leader. This was the one exception where there was an over-the-shoulder shot from the leader to the other men. Still, no acute angles here, dear God I wouldn't dream of it. 

In terms of what makes this a Wes Anderson movie, this was the most storybook-like, dollhouse-esque of all of his movies that I have seen. Of course, they all have the intermittent screens breaking the movie into chapters and "parts." This one, though, with its rich and often monochromatic colors, pictureque hotel model (it was actually pretty tiny in real life) and ski lift models, and angular set-design and camera movement, made it feel even more planned out and carefully organized. This was also his most gory, raunchy, and fast-paced, so I wonder whether the pristine...ness of the movie was to intentionally counteract or make ironic the controlled chaos that was unfolding plot-wise. Just like what that second review said, Anderson did not waste a minute of this movie on the frivolous; it honestly felt like if one of his movies took caffeine pills and was the most Wes-Anderson-y that it could possibly be. 

I watched this movie with my dad, and I feel like the conversation is pretty noteworthy; it's an idea I've thought about a lot in the past about Wes Anderson's movies.  He asked why his movies always have these deeply disturbing subplots and upsetting character backstories; either he has some past trauma or otherwise is a sicko. I actually think that this adds such an important layer of nuance to his movies. Because they're drenched in color, whimsy, dry humor, and generally ridiculous plotting by the intensely-driven characters, they could easy be dismissed as totally unrelatable and devoid of exigence or purpose. But, because they're grounded in these actually very somber memories (Max Fischer's mother died when he was young, Chas Tenenbaum's wife died young, and Zero's entire family was killed in a war, forcing him to flee) and events and because you can see how these drive all the actions of the characters they affect, they feel much more real. You can connect with Max Fischer as he simultaneously throws a temper tantrum, negotiates with the headmaster, and writes the school play; you can empathize with the childish, paranoid Chas Tenenbaum as he screams at his kids to prepare for an impromptu fire emergency; you can even connect with Zero, entirely expressionless and monotonous, a true man of few words. It's these moments of real suffering that connect you with these otherwise impetuous, irrational characters. I don't think he's a sicko -- I think it's actually pretty brilliant. 

I also realized just now that I forgot to rank these movies for FFS like the other MYST posts... if that's something we need to do, I'll do it for the final summary post.