The Grand Budapest

"To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he had ever entered it. We were happy here; for a little while.”

I was home the other night, tired from a long day and ready to unwind, looking for something to do. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything particularly badly, so I did the one thing that made the most sense: I lay down and watched a movie; The Grand Budapest Hotel to be precise. It is easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It is genius. Wes Anderson will be remembered as a kind of Hitchcock, I think. His meticulous attention to detail affords him a kind of aesthetic that transcends aesthetic, blurring the lines between form and content. Though heavily, heavily contrived - and what is art if not contrivance practiced to mimic its lack - his films are immersive, distinct, enchanting. He is the Nabokov of film makers. When I read Lolita, Q recommended I read the annotated version, to glimpse the varying layers of complexity masked by an outwardly simple story. It is a deception devised by Nabokov, a game, which grants him an opportunity to toy with us as one would a child, teasing us, titalating us; he is a director instructing us how to feel. One can see Anderson not only inside Gustave, Zero, and the other three storytellers, but also inside ourselves as we cultivate our own narratives. There is a perfect circular symmetry to the movie, the end of which, leaves the viewer enamored and nostalgic, tingling with metaphysical sensation and satisfaction. The story is told by Anderson, through the “Author,” (who, to add another level of nuance, is the very author who inspired Anderson to write the film) in a book which is read by a girl on a wooden cemetery bench. The author tells the story through the voice of his younger self (Jude Law), who tells it through Zero’s voice, who tells us Gustave’s story; arguably the inciting inspiration for the piece. For it was Gustave who imbued Zero with the distinction and poetic expression which would later attract the author to his tale through its telling.

The story takes place in an old, unfrequented hotel; a collection of empty rooms full with haunted memories. It is a story about loneliness, how the doors in the hotel of our hearts are barricaded and rendered inaccessible by time. There is a peculiarity to the film; everything is ever so slightly perfumed by unreality. It is perhaps one of the most liberally perfumed films I have ever seen; the kind that lingers long after it has gone. At the start of the movie, Gustave, a representation of Anderson, turns to await a knock at his door before it even arrives, as if signifying that though he is the hotel's director, he too is an actor. Then, walking through the lobby, something unusual occurs while interviewing Zero. Each question serves to affirm and define Zero, as though Gustave is breathing life into him, helping to create a fully realized character; forcing Zero to understand his motives and place in the the movie. He is, essentially, directing him. Gustave has the same palliative effect on Madame D, who, reluctant to leave the hotel to play her part - of the murdered countess in Lutz - is urged on by our effete and mustached hero.

On the surface, the film appears to be kitschy and overwrought with a playful wit, a clever, cutesy sentiment, making it easy to forget the sad, tearful eyes hiding in plain sight behind darkened dinner tables. All of the main characters are bereft of familial ties, having suffered great indignities and loss. Zero, in particular, was tortured and interrogated, his family murdered by a militia. The characters form a kind of family of orphans within the hotel, taking refuge in one another’s company, truly. But just when their happiness seems within reach, it is snatched away; Gustave is shot by fascists, Agatha and her unborn child fall victim to death and disease, the hotel itself falls into disrepair and Zero’s name seems a cruel, eponymous joke.

It is a tale of loss, love, greed, murder, pain. It seems, at times, and also often, deliberately ostentatious, a kind of showy piece of artifice to both mark and mask the pain and loneliness of the protagonists. It is a also movie about writing, narrated by a writer. The way the characters speak is a loud departure from the way normal people speak; everyone speaks as though they are inside a book, because, in fact, they are. As mentioned earlier, it is the story of Gustave more than anyone; of his indomitable memory, living on like a cherished painting on the hotel wall of Zero’s heart. He made it what it was; not only the Budapest, but also, Zero. Gustave represents creativity and romanticism; he is an allegory. It’s easily seen in the scene on the train, when Ed Norton first appears. There is also an abundance of device; the viewer somehow feels more like a participant than an observer, growing into Zero’s character as he does; the frequent help from the camera angles create a more believable world; the various “first-persons" that shift seamlessly into the familiar, third-persons; the poetic omission of Agatha by mention of Agatha; the circularity of the film from start to finish; breaking the fourth wall as the characters peer back at the audience for recognition.

It is lovely.

"He sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace."