Wes Anderson is cinema’s inner child incarnate. His perfectly crafted interior universes – labyrinthine submarines, exotic trains, prestigious private schools – are populated by imperfect sad souls, live-action Charlie Browns who are forever mourning or resenting some kind of loss, be it their childhood, a deceased family member or pet, a lost love, or even a lifestyle.
Many of Anderson’s films are about old-fashioned, upper-class ways of life. If the practices are not entirely antiquated, they are celebrated for their oddness (think of Richie Tenenbaum sending telegrams while sailing the high seas in The Royal Tenenbaums, or the analog equipment used by Steve Zissou’s team in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). Occasionally, such characteristics, be they entertaining or endearing, can also feel slight or too accented. Perhaps “obsessed” would be overstating Anderson’s preoccupation with these quirky ways of life, though they do seem like an extension of himself, and perhaps that’s why they usually fit symbiotically within his well-articulated, whimsical worlds. When watching his films, one can’t help but feel that the real world is a crushing disappointment in contrast to Anderson’s fantastical diegeses, and that this sad fact is something to be mourned as well.
This nostalgic longing for a world that is simply not as marvelous as Anderson’s own imagination, culled extensively from a romanticized real-life past, is something his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, self-reflexively explores.
Tony Revolori and Saoirse Ronan in ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’
The narrative structure is reminiscent of Russian nesting dolls. In present day, a young girl visits a monument of a well-regarded writer (known only as The Author) and begins reading a chapter from one of his books, about his visit to the imaginary country of Zubrowska. The aging writer (Tom Wilkinson) narrates his serendipitous meeting with Mr. Zero Moustafa, the mysterious owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel. The film then does a series of flashbacks. First to the 1960s, where the younger Author (Jude Law) dines with the serene and stoic Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), as he recounts how he came to own the Grand Budapest, which was by that time in a sad state of disarray (though still functional, the rooms and hallways are plagued by black and white anal-retentive signs, giving the impression the once-glorious hotel is no longer so hospitable).
Flashing back to his adolescence and young adulthood, the film lets Moustafa take over the narration as he recounts his legendary life story, growing up in the 1920s and 1930s (his younger self played by Tony Revolori), and the impact of his friendship with Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), the Grand Budapest’s concierge, who groomed Zero when he was hired as a lobby boy. Though Zero is ostensibly the protagonist, the film is truly about Gustave, his fascinating life and more importantly, his way of life. Gustave’s Old Romantic, gentlemanly ways were not only quaint to the ever-curious Author in the 1960s; as Zero explains, they were already unfashionable in the 1930s.
And what a loss: Gustave is as peculiar as he is virtuous, defending Zero’s honour in the face of terrifying authorities (at one point, Nazi stand-ins), and fostering in the impressionable Zero a deep appreciation for romantic poetry as well as a diligent work ethic in the difficult, abstemious industry of hospitality. Gustave runs the Budapest like a well-oiled machine, but his propensity in serving older female patrons of the hotel leads him right into hot water. Though the film never outright calls him an amateur gigolo (the term would be too crass for Anderson and, by extension, Gustave), the term is essentially correct, the most frank way of describing Gustave’s rendezvous with many of the hotel`s older, fragile and blonde clients.
When one of those clients, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), passes away and leaves in Gustave’s name a famous, priceless painting, her vile, fascist-y son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) frames Gustave for his mother’s murder. And so the cat-and-mouse chase begins: Gustave is detained in prison, sharing a cell with the heavily tattooed Ludwig (Harvey Keitel), but manages to break out with the ingenious help of Zero and his girlfriend Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), whose job in a bakery proves useful when the couple smuggles in shovelling tools hidden in beautiful cakes. They are on the run from not only the police but Dmitri’s hired bad-guy J.G. Jopling (Willem Dafoe). This over-long section forms the weakest part of the story and nearly ruins the entire film, because as soon as the escape plan is hatched it’s almost painfully predictable exactly how Anderson will go about conducting the zany, multi-layered, slapstick-comedy-heavy sequence. Instead of offering levity, the sequence flounders and feels awfully inappropriate for a film that is otherwise trying for poignancy.
Willem Dafoe as J.G. Jopling
Everything leading up to Gustave’s imprisonment, on the other hand, is wonderful and funny. His hawk eye for punctuality is a key component in his staff delivering top-notch service at the hotel, yet he still makes time for daily rituals, like reading romantic poems to his staff while they efficiently gobble up their meals. Gustave’s discerning taste extends to a signature scent that he simply cannot live without, the L’Air De Panache cologne that he insists upon carrying on him even when he and Zero are in the throes of fugitive poverty. Gustave’s high expectation to maintain a dignified air and respectability even in the height of frenzied danger, when he and Zero are escaping Dmitri and J.G., is endearing, perhaps baffling, but also admirable in a way. Even in looming danger – presented in the form of their crude and petty prey, and later by the Nazi stand-ins – Gustave is intent on retaining a refined, dignified individuality in the face of conformity and vulgarity.
Moustafa doesn’t quite mourn for his friend when recalling their great adventures – he’s more appreciative of the fact that his life was so indelibly shaped by his dearest friend. That lasting impact, so well instilled by his former employer and best friend, is noticed by the Author when he first hears rumours about Moustafa. Though he inherits the hotel from Gustave (who in turn, inherited from Madame D.), during his visits to the dilapidated institution, he insists upon staying in the servant’s quarters he lived in as a lobby boy.
There remains a noticeable sadness in the older Zero’s eyes after he’s done telling his tale, one that speaks to the bittersweet quality of remembering loved ones. He clearly misses his old friend, as well as Gustave’s distinct way of life. The Grand Budapest Hotel, then, is not precisely about romantic poetry. Or falling in love with bakery girls. For lack of a better word, it’s Anderson’s best bromance, though that’s another word he and Gustave would shudder to hear. This beautiful, though flawed, film, is at its best when it so delicately underscores one of its major ideas, that of learning to let go of a past – a romantic way of life, a virtuous belief system, genteel traditions and rituals – in order to move on with the present.
