The Grand
Budapest Hotel (2014): Written and directed by Wed Anderson. Starring:
Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Léa Seydoux, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Tony Revolori. Running Time: 99 minutes.
Rating: 4/4
When looking at the general body of
Wes Anderson’s work, it’s all too easy to see his strange mix of the outlandish
and the dark as simply the strange, meaningless byproduct of a person too
caught up in his own fantastical whimsy to be able to piece together something
of genuine substance or deeper emotional importance. And without a doubt, his methods and styles
of telling his tremendously strange tales lend themselves to such
misinterpretation, making no effort to bring uninitiated newcomers in on the
joke. Which is, for me, tremendously
unfortunate, because when I look beyond the unabashed silliness in his movies,
I find a treasure trove of interpretation, symbolism, allegory, and philosophical
commentary that is clearly the product of a piercingly intelligent and sharply
organized mind, albeit a partially insane one.
This became clear to me after seeing Anderson’s previous film, Moonrise Kingdom (which I still consider
to be a minor masterpiece), and this impression has only been strengthened by
his newest contribution to the world, The
Grand Budapest Hotel.
The story begins in the future
(relative to the main plot), working its way backward before skipping forward
again. A young girl, all alone, enters a
graveyard to hang a key on the tombstone of a writer, obviously honored as a
national treasure, made clear by the rows upon rows of shiny, gaudy room keys
covering the stone marking of his final remains. The girls opens the book (titled, of course, The Grand Budapest Hotel), and we
suddenly jump back in time, seeing the writer as an old man (played by Tom
Wilkinson), who begins to explain to us (and it is most definitely us, not some
off-screen cameraman) how he chanced across the story of the hotel.
This leads to the next time skip, as
Jude Law, playing the writer as a younger man, visits the hotel in questions
shortly before it was torn down for being unprofitable (and, let’s be honest,
for having become a massive, Soviet-esque eyesore). During his stay, he encounters Zero Moustafa
(F. Murray Abraham), the mysterious owner of the hotel and a number of castles
around Europe. After meeting him in the baths, Zero agrees to tell the writer the story of how he came into
possession of the old establishment.
We are now led once more into the
recesses of time to the main story.
Zero, a young refuge, successfully wins the confidence and respect of
Gustave H. (a magnificently comical and boyish Ralph Fiennes), the concierge of
the Budapest when it was still the go-to, gloriously tacky resort for all
manner of aged, wealthy clientele.
Gustave rules this establish as a benevolent dictator, exacting in his
standards, yet given over to composing his own, God-awful poetry and reciting
it at every staff dinner. Zero is a
slight wisp of a lad, soaking in every word Gustave tells him, determined to
make his mentor proud.
While not necessarily the focus of
the story, it is the relationship between Zero and Gustave that provides most
of the film’s emotional center. At
first, it looks like their characters and interactions will be nothing more
than skin-deep farce- Gustave is overweening, pompous, and demanding to a
ludicrous extreme. Zero is wide-eyed and
innocent, merely seeking to become a carbon copy of Gustave. Thankfully, Anderson very quickly moves to
dissuade such notions almost from the get-to.
Gustave strives so very hard to be the model of a respectable, “civilized”
gentleman, yet he sleeps with nearly all of his regular clientele (the gender
of a given client being of no apparent concern). He is unfailingly polite even when threatened
with death (which soon becomes a regular occurance), but when his patience runs
out, few sailors in the British navy could hope to match his verbose
swearing. A working-class background is
hinted at, but never explored, leaving the man an enigma wrapped in a
mystery. Zero is equally complex,
although we do get a bit more of his backstory.
He has seen tragedy and war, but never allows its terrors to prevent him
from seeking love in the form of a village bakery girl. And his determination and resourcefulness
soon win him not only the respect, but eventually the deep love and friendship
of Gustave. Instead of staying in rigid,
master/apprentice roles, the two become a dynamic team in every sense of the
word, and seeing this change wrought over time is not only funny, but also
immensely touching at times.
Zero’s love for said bakery girl,
Agatha, deserves special mention, even though it is not a terribly large part of the
film. This is not deliberate ignorance
on the part of Zero, or even Anderson, since it is quite clear that the focus
is on Zero and Gustave. Her few moments
are, however, suffused with a love and a reverence that few protagonists manage
to show for their significant others.
They may not be on-screen together for long, but their few scenes together,
along with a minor reveal concerning the future of Zero’s ownership of the
hotel, provide some of the more genuine romantic moments I’ve seen in theaters
in recent years.
To briefly return to the
aforementioned story- the second act of the movie kicks in when one of Gustave’s
favorite elder female guests, Tilda Swinton looking unrecognizable in old-lady
makeup, dies under suspicious circumstances (a failure to resolve this part of
the story is one of the film's few flaws).
He immediately falls under suspect, primarily because the woman willed to
him an immensely valuable painting, which her vicious son (Adrian Brody) is
determined to regain. To this end he
lets loose his vicious attack-dog of a lackey (a wonderfully evil William
Dafoe) to keep the family lawyer quiet (Jeff Goldblum) and to make sure Gustave
meets a brutal end before he can discover the secret of the woman’s horrible
murder. What follows- a serious of chase
sequences, prison happenstances, an encounter with a secret society of hotel
managers, enchantingly beautiful cakes, and the takeover of the Budapest by an
SS mock-up called the “ZZ”- is not something I can delve into without spoiling
the whole, wonderful affair. Suffice it
to say that it is a wonderful journey well worth every minute spent in the
theater.
The constant theme woven throughout
the story is the paradox that is humanity’s ability to be both beautiful and
brutal, and how the two are never fully reconciled with each other, and perhaps
never will be. And if I had to sum up
the film in one sentence, it would be in the form of a question related to this
very conflict- are our efforts to hold back the base, the rude, and violent in
ourselves noble and brave, or pathetic and hopeless? Is Gustave a tragic hero for striving to
desperately to maintain his tiny little oasis in a sea of darkness? Zero himself, as an old man, confides to the
writer that he’s never sure Gustave’s world existed in the first place, or if
it did, “it died long before he was born.”
He then adds an afterthought, which only adds to the ambiguity of what
the answer to my question is, if such an answer is even relevant; “He certainly
did his best to maintain the illusion.”
The
Grand Budapest Hotel is every bit as wacky, zany, and whimsical as we’ve
come to expect from Wes Anderson. Like
with Moonrise Kingdom though, the
silly is permeated with a sense of nostalgic sadness, whispers of things lost,
and things that never were, and never could be.
Its outer appearances to the contrary, it is a weighty film, another
wonderful accomplishment from one of the most unique filmmakers alive today,
and a resoundingly strong start for another year in film.
-Noah
Franc
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