The
Grand Budapest Hotel
is indie quirk-master Wes Anderson’s eighth feature. A unique cinematic specimen,
tweed-coated Anderson here forces his inimitable style onto the crime caper. The
luxurious trappings of European grand hotels have been the source of inspiration
before (the aptly-named Grand Hotel
being one), but never has the setting looked quite like this.
The story is told in a roundabout way: a
girl reads a book, narrated by its deceased author, who relays a tale which was conveyed to him years earlier by a rich hotel owner. Through this rambling,
inter-generational introduction the story settles on Gustave H., played
brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes, a suffocatingly neat and dedicated concierge of the
Grand Budapest Hotel in the 1930s. The owner, now the principal raconteur, was apprenticed
to the anachronistic gentleman as a lobby boy during the hotel’s interwar glory days.
Things went pear shaped as Zubrowska, the
fictional mid-European country in which we find ourselves, teetered on the brink
of war. When the death of an elderly guest puts Gustave in the spotlight as her
murderer, he and Zero are thrown into the most Hitchockian of adventures to
clear his name. Disguises, sped-up chases, prisons and castles, bumbling cops
and fascist soldiers, secret notes, secret societies, secret plans – they are
all there. The rambling plot remains tight and thrilling throughout.
Wes Anderson’s idiosyncratic style is
instantly recognisable. Apparently on a ceaseless search for the perfectly
quirky picture, his films are a controlled chaos of off-beat aesthetics and
dazzling colour. The locale of Zubrowska has been meticulously planned down to
the smallest of details: delectable old-world confectionary from the hotel’s
cake-maker makes frequent appearances, and these luxurious treats are simply miniature
versions of what Anderson has created with his scenery. The resemblance to
stage sets harks back to the first decades of cinema, when many set designers
emigrated from theatre to film. The film looks almost like it is based on specific
painting style. I doubt that it is, although there is a hint of Hergé in the cartoon
adventure. TGBH is worth watching
purely for the visuals.
Another prominent aspect is the panoply
of characters who pop up briefly or extendedly. Tilda Swinton is the murdered aristocrat,
Adrien Brody her scurrilously evil son, Willem Defoe his hulking enforcer and
Jeff Goldblum his deputy; Jude Law is the younger version of Tom Wilkinson’s
novelist listening to F. Murray Abraham, the lobby boy in old age; Harvey
Keitel, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Owen Wilson... I could go
on. Thus it is all the more impressive that Fiennes and newcomer Tony Revolori
(lobby boy Zero) stand out as the chalk-and-cheese double act in the middle.
Most have moustaches.
But for all the uproarious humour and
quirky joy, there is a bittersweet quality to TGBH. Anderson has tried to capture, if only momentarily, a European
world which was lost in the destruction of world war, communism and
(post)modernity. The smart style, the dedication to service and the manners really
were better in the old days, apparently. Thus a kind of nostalgia is promoted,
with the postscript that all the positive values of yesteryear are lost for
eternity. The difference between Anderson and Gustave is that the former
realises this world died long ago.
Entertaining? Undeniably so. Funny? Hilariously
so. Eccentric? Abundantly so. The camera pans and swirls through the richly mad
world of old-European charm. Scratch the Dulux colour chart of a surface,
though, and there is grief, loss and death. I suspect that most directors would have veered away from such negativity in what is ultimately a comedy, so it is lucky that tragedy has been injected in the way it has. But with a snap of the fingers
Anderson sweeps us back into the delightful decadence of a place that never
actually existed.
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