I don’t know if everyone has a favorite Wes Anderson film of theirs, mine is definitely The Tenenbaums (
The Royal Tenenbaums
) with which in my opinion he had already achieved a kind of perfection 20 years ago.
After that I still followed and loved him-with great satisfaction-in all his slow-motion cinematic wanderings, from the crazy and nonsensical to the even crazier and nonsensical. Of course it is difficult for you to like Wes Anderson “enough.” It is a bit like baked pizza and pineapple, there is no middle ground: you either love it or you hate it. I love him. So imagine my immense joy when a few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending the premiere of The French Dispatch in the Prada Foundation: there was Wes himself (in a green chenille suit that only he can afford), there was the Bar Luce (designed by him) as a backdrop, and there was even a pinball machine used in the film. Practically perfection.
The French Dispatch
The film is about the editorial staff of a fictitious magazine(The French Dispatch precisely), a supplement to an equally fictitious Kansas newspaper. Not to miss a surreal element right from the concept, I add that the editorial office is located in France, in the – also fictitious – little village of Ennui-sur-Blasé (literally “boredom on apathy”).
The truth, however, is that the whole newsroom thing-aside from being an overt homage to The New Yorker magazine-is nothing more than a narrative ploy to hold together four episodes, four completely unrelated stories. I’ll say it right away so we don’t misunderstand each other then: in my opinion an extremely weak and at times gratuitous glue, it could have been (almost) anything. Moreover, the enormous beauty of this part would have merited the film being devoted exclusively to the peculiar editing of The French Dispatch, instead.
Without risking unnecessary spoilers I can tell you that otherwise this is 108 minutes of Wes Anderson making a Wes Anderson film to the nth degree.
A frenetic succession of paintings maniacally studied in every smallest detail: color, light, music, framing and (few) camera movements. The same frenzy and perfection (more, more) that you find in.
Grand Budapest Hotel
, however there was a story there. Wacky and nonsensical but a story. I missed the story here.
At this point why not make it a mini-series? The genre has reached very high levels of quality and investment by now anyway. Eight episodes, TFD’s editorial staff to serve as the main thread and boom. I would have appreciated.
You certainly can’t say Wes Anderson doesn’t do things with manic care, though: here you’ll find an account of how the magazine was designed for real by his creative team, including mock ads and boxes to cut out to subscribe!
The cast is monumental–in completely random order: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Benicio del Toro, Frances McDormand, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz, Jeffrey Wright, Timothée Chalamet, Léa Seydoux, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, and someone else I am certainly forgetting–but most of the actors have little more than a handful of lines, at best. As if to remind us that Uncle Wes could have made the same film with anyone.
Don’t think I’m advising you not to go see it; in fact, I think it absolutely must be seen. In the end it is always a question of expectations: if you lower them a little bit then you leave the hall more satisfied.
Ah, if you’ve already seen the movie and that looked like him there, yes: that is indeed him.