'The Grand Budapest Hotel' - a colorful cinematic feast

Director Wes Anderson unleashes his rich, soaring imagination into a career-defining masterpiece.

The film is set somewhere in the fictional country of Zubrowka in far Eastern Europe, with a mountain range called the Alpine Sudetenwaltz. At the foot of the mountain lies the beautiful town of Nebelsbad, nestled peacefully among pine forests. At the top of the mountain stands an ancient building, with a turquoise tiled roof and pale pink walls. The Grand Budapest Hotel, “once famous, thoughtful and picturesque”.

Inspired by the works of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, director Wes Anderson continues to create a novel-like film, exploring themes and genres that have never appeared in his filmmaking style. The Grand Budapest Hotel, as its name suggests, is truly a "big" work in the director's filmmaking career.

Poster for the movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel".

If you only look at the outside, you can easily see that The Grand Budapest Hotel is a Wes Anderson film: full of detailed, colorful frames; the characters' personalities are clearly and distinctly developed; the film follows a familiar chapter structure and is always filled with laughter.

But instead of going straight into the story as usual, the director actively told it using the “story within a story” technique. Not just one, but three stories are nested together, like a multi-story hotel. Each “floor” corresponds to a different frame, representing a certain historical period that takes place in the film.

From the first floor, Wes Anderson takes the audience to the fictional Republic of Zubrowka. On a snow-covered street, a young girl is walking to visit the monument of an unnamed writer, hailed as a “national treasure”. As has become a custom, she takes a key from her coat pocket and hangs it on the statue, next to many other available keys, then opens his novel to read.

The next shot takes the viewer back to 1985, when the great writer was still healthy enough to tell his story. The frame cuts from 1:85 to 1:80 to indicate the change in time, then switches to 4:3 and stops at 2:35:1, which is when the writer's story begins.

It is said that when he was young, during a visit to the Grand Budapest Hotel, he happened to meet and become acquainted with Mr. Zero Moustafa - the hotel owner, who was once the richest man in Zubrowka. Being a fan of the writer's works, Mr. Moustafa invited him to dinner and agreed to tell him his story.

From here, the narrator switches places, moving back in time to 1932, when the war is still raging in Zubrowka, the Grand Budapest Hotel is at its peak, and a young Zero Moustafa has just arrived to take up a job as a lobby boy. Although the bulk of the story is devoted to Zero’s time at the Grand Budapest, the focus is on the hotel’s previous manager, Mr. Gustave.

Changing style might seem unthinkable to Wes Anderson, a stickler for camera placement and editing. But with The Grand Budapest Hotel, the biggest departure in his storytelling is the reduction of frame space. Zero’s entire story, which is also the main content of the film, is shot in 4:3 mode - the standard ratio of old black-and-white silent films. This setting creates a nostalgic feeling that is true to the time period in which the story takes place, while also allowing the director to fully display his sophisticated aesthetic.

Sir Gustave is one of the most memorable characters of world cinema in 2014.

The lens is always placed in a fixed state with the axis of symmetry in the center position. The way the camera moves also follows a 90-degree, 180-degree rotation trajectory; either running parallel to the character's movement, or standing perpendicular to the ground; zooming in and out accurately to the millimeter.

Between the classic frames are vibrant, brilliant color blocks, like a blend of new and old. Most of the film was shot in Görlitz, a small town in Germany, imbued with the beauty of ancient Europe with ancient architecture and snow-covered roads on both sides. Against that backdrop, Wes’ meticulousness is shown in the way he arranges and decorates the scene, from the dishes placed on the table, the costumes and appearance of the characters, to the articles, texts, documents… which are carefully composed, meticulously crafted to look real.

The music composed by Alexandre Desplat is also meticulous with a total of 32 songs, corresponding to each scene in the film with a separate rhythm. All of this makes each scene of The Grand Budapest Hotel appear both magical and familiar, like a page of a children's picture book, or an Andersen fairy tale coming out of the big screen.

Not only is the composition balanced, the casting also follows the principle of equal distribution with 18 different main and supporting characters. Besides the familiar names associated with Wes' previous films (Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman) are new faces collaborating for the first time (Saoirse Ronan, Léa Seydoux, Jude Law), many people appear briefly in the film as casual guests visiting the hotel that Wes created. The two main characters are also a pairing between an experienced Ralph Fiennes, playing the role of Mr. Gustave, and a Tony Revolori who is still unfamiliar to movie audiences, but plays the role of the boy Zero without being overshadowed by the star cast.

The family element, which became an important link connecting the main characters in previous works (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited), is no longer present in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Neither Zero nor Gustave have a clear background. Gustave is described as a middle-aged Don Juan, who often flirts with and has affairs with rich, old, and emotionally deprived blonde ladies. The criteria for choosing women shows that Gustave is also a very principled person, yet he agrees to "break the rules" to let Zero - a boy with no family, no relatives, and according to him, no education or experience - work for the hotel.

The image of Gustave is also an interesting metaphor that Wes Anderson uses for himself when he constantly breaks the principles he has set for himself for a long time. The Grand Budapest Hotel follows a typical humorous rhythm, but the film's trigger begins with an event that smells of crime, with a hint of detective atmosphere - a genre that has never appeared in Wes's works.

Tony Revolori (left) and Saoirse Ronan in a scene from the film.

The sudden death of Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), one of Gustave's many mistresses, gives him and Zero a reason to leave the Grand Budapest and embark on a new adventure together. Wes also mixes in romance (between Zero and Agatha) and recreates three classic Hollywood action scenes (the prison break, the skiing scene and the shooting scene), in his own distinctive style.

The principle of symmetry is also thoroughly applied by him in the way of building the script. If in previous works, Wes's characters were either eccentric or mischievous, and the bad guys, if any, only played supporting roles, then The Grand Budapest Hotel clearly distinguishes the two lines of good and evil. Adrien Brody plays the son of Madame D., who, together with his henchmen, tries to find a way to harm Gustave in order to take over his mother's fortune. All the events of Zero and Gustave are divided into four equal parts, inserted between two wars that broke out in Zubrowka. The "story within a story" technique helps the film to be symmetrical from front to back, with clear opening and closing.

After a series of hearty laughs, Wes ends the film with a touch of sadness, as if to balance the audience's emotions. "The free country of Zubrowka officially no longer exists", the image of the Grand Budapest Hotel in its heyday is now only in the young writer's imagination. In front of him now is an empty lobby, under the dim lights, exuding a terrifying sadness and loneliness. That world may not exist, perhaps "it disappeared long before he set foot in it", according to Zero Moustafa. But to enjoy the captivating beauty of old people, sometimes you also need to have a soaring imagination, like Wes Anderson and Gustave.

Movie trailer "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

According to VNE