The Moviejerk
  • Home
  • Film Reviews
  • Latest News
  • Features
  • Retrospective
Subscribe
The Moviejerk
0
0
0
144
The Moviejerk
  • Home
  • Film Reviews
  • Latest News
  • Features
  • Retrospective
  • Berlin 2014
  • Film Reviews

Berlin 2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel

  • February 6, 2014
  • No comments
  • 1.1K views
  • 3 minute read
  • Janz Anton-Iago
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0

Consider it quite appropriate that the Berlinale has chosen Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel to open the city’s film festival this year. It’s a gorgeously realised movie in thrall of filmmaking itself – an elaborately structured, highly cine-literate comedy that dazzlingly weaves not just one but three interlocking narratives, spanning across decades and shifting from one aspect ratio to the next and then another. It’s also a distinctly European-flavoured confection, serving up an alternate history of Germany between the two world wars, setting his rambunctious adventure in the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, which looks like Bavaria as re-imagined through Andersonian lens. Here, historical resonance at its darkest i.e. the rise of fascism is handled with lightweight sensibility, but never with carelessness, and in pure Anderson fashion – no meticulous framing, tracking shot, backdrop detail and a Russian-doll narrative device is left unaffected by the delightful whimsy of the King of Quirk himself.

True to Anderson’s nimble and vibrant signature storytelling, 100 mins fly by and The Grand Budapest Hotel ambitiously swathes a few film genres, defying easy categorisation along the way. More than just a hotel memoir, Anderson manages to pack in a heist movie, a crime caper, a prison-break film, wartime noir, family drama and a buddy comedy. Ralph Fiennes (both wonderfully withering and ebullient, gracefully slipping romantic poetry one minute and dropping F-bombs the next) plays the vivacious chief concierge-cum-lothario Gustave H. and his flinty lobby boy Zero Moustafa (newcomer Tony Revolori being the only unknown in the impressive intercontinental cast list), who both evade pursuit of the police and the shady clan of the murdered aristocrat Madame D. (an utterly game Tilda Swinton in age-old prosthetic), to which Gustave has been romantically linked to. To explain its plot further is to reveal its narrative complexities, and not since The Royal Tenenbaums has Anderson intricately mapped out a sheer collection of characters all pulling together a joyfully complicated scenario as told through novelistic chapters.

If there’s a caveat, a nagging sense frivolity halfway through threatens to derail this picture, and a chase scene atop snowy mountains becomes a near-desperate attempt for an action sequence. Emotional texture is also marginally compromised here, compared to the richness of depth in Tenenbaums and the blissfully nostalgic Moonrise Kingdom. But what it lacks in deep feelings make up for its innovative, exhilarating technical control, with Anderson pushing his form and style even further. The titular hotel itself is a masterpiece in production design and logistics, its opulent lobby, hallways and corridors breathing as much personality as its roster of eccentric characters. If we were to judge an entire film by its aesthetics alone, then this would be one of the most beautifully shot and grandiosely designed films in the last ten years. It’s a visual feast – and yet beneath the shiny ornate caprices, there’s Anderson quietly lamenting a bygone Romantic age of Europe, of the cultured yesteryear and the passage of time, making way for a brutal modernism. This film pleads us to look back and enjoy the glorious past.

 

tmbutton_small_final

Total
0
Shares
Like 0
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Related Topics
  • adrien brody
  • berlin film festival
  • berlinale 2014
  • jason schwartzmann
  • Ralph Fiennes
  • saorise ronan
  • the grand budapest hotel
  • Tilda Swinton
  • Wes Anderson
Janz Anton-Iago

Founder & Editor of The Moviejerk - a UK film blog dedicated to the cinematic experience, featuring no-holds-barred film reviews, movie chatter, occasional rants and passionate film lovin'.

Previous Article
  • Berlin 2014
  • Features

The Berlinale Diaries 2014: Part 1

  • February 5, 2014
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
Next Article
  • Berlin 2014
  • Film Reviews

Berlin 2014: Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter

  • February 7, 2014
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

  • November 17, 2018
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Jackie (2017)

  • January 28, 2017
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Gold (2017)

  • January 23, 2017
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Allied (2016)

  • November 22, 2016
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (2016)

  • November 17, 2016
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Me Before You (2016)

  • July 5, 2016
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

Possession (1981)

  • June 26, 2016
  • Janz Anton-Iago
View Post
  • Film Reviews

The Neon Demon (2016)

  • June 23, 2016
  • Janz Anton-Iago

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

The Moviejerk
  • Advertise
  • Get in Touch
  • Get in touch. I won’t bite.
  • Home
  • Our Origin Story
  • Privacy Policy
  • Shortcodes
  • Terms of Use
  • The Moviejerk | Passionate. No bullshit. Just mad about film.
  • Features
  • Blog
  • Portfolio
  • Contact
  • Shop
Passionate. No bullshit. Just mad about film.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.