I decided to start a thread about the new Wes Anderson movie and decided that I may as well make it a general Wes Anderson thread to boot. In the past the threads about specific films haven't really lasted long so we may as well have a catch all thread. As his more recent films have that "doll house" and somewhat dreamy or surreal feel to them, I've put it in this forum. Mods, if you think it belongs in the TV & Media forum, please move accordingly.
So....The Phoenician Scheme.
As usual when a new Wes Anderson film comes out lately you have the same old "This is the most Wes Anderson that Wes Anderson has ever Wes Andersoned" comments. And to be honest, while this has all the usual hallmarks of his films, it's a much leaner, straight forward and enjoyable film in my opinion. Also much funnier than the last couple of outings. The Grand Budapest Hotel had the onion skin "story within a story within a story within a story" format, The French Dispatch had the anthology format and Asteroid City had the "play within the play within the tv show" format. This film eschews all of that with a pretty straight forward story which is, at it's core, about a father trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Zsa Zsa Korda played by Benicio del Toro has concocted an elaborate enterprise that will essentially be both extremely profitable to him and his partners in crime as well as a positive benefit for different regions of Phoenicia. Before the film starts he's gotten agreements from the other partners to help cover the costs, but a consortium of multi-government agencies / industries conspire to break him and so raise the cost of a type of bolt, which is "the foundation of modern civil engineering". What used to be 10 for a couple of bucks goes waaaay up in price and there is now a gap in funding that must now be covered. So the film is about him revisiting all of the partners in this enterprise and trying to get more money from them to cover "the gap" and all the wacky hijinks that ensue.
In addition to all of this, Korda has survived multiple assassination attempts, and in fact the film starts with one such attempt. He summons his daughter Liesl (played by Mia Threapleton), who is determined to become a nun, and makes her his heir to take over the business (and possibly avenge him) in case he dies. Korda is a very strong willed individual who lives by the motto "Flatten what's in your way" or something to that effect. Liesl has only responded to the summons to confront him about her mothers murder when she was a child. He denies having done it or having arranged it and implicates his half brother in the deed. She wants the killer to be brought to justice so she agrees to be his heir "on a trial basis" in order to confront and bring her uncle to justice if he's the killer.
As they go on their journey around the country visiting the various partners in the scheme, Liesl is the voice of reason, compassion and forgiveness while Korda is both cunning, reckless often heartless but surprisingly warm as well. It's to the credit of the script and del Toro's portrayal of Korda that we constantly root for him. He has multiple near death experiences in the film and in these moments he has visions of (or visits) the Afterlife and in these instances are little revelatory moments of his life, past events and so on and we see the cumulative effect these have on him. We come to understand why he is the way he, understand why he's having an existential crisis and we see the effect that being around Liesl has on him (as well as the reverse) as the picture progresses.
It's just a leaner story for all the people in it, and there are a lot. Like a LOT. Beyond all the big names there's a lot of extra's in this film. All of the various partners in the scheme (Hanks, Cranston, Ahmed, Almaric, Cumberbatch, Wright and Johansson) are entertaining characters and watching Korda try to get more money out of them to cover the gap is fun. I saw one description of the film as "It's like watching a film about Tin Tin baddies without Tin TIn in it". Yeah, I guess that could fit.
The art direction, as usual, is impeccable. As I said above, with his recent films people have said "It's the most Wes Anderson that Wes Anderson has ever Wes Andersoned" or feel that he's become a parody of himself. I kind of felt that way with "The French Dispatch", but less so with "Asteroid City", and despite seeing both those claims with this film, in a weird way, it feels more restrained than those films to me. Sure, there are the usual stylistic flourishes, symetrical filming, miniatures, and so on, there's less of the trademark monotone delivery, it's there, but everytime Korda meets with one of the investors, there's a shouting match. Mia Threapleton has most of the deadpan delivery, but del Toro and Michael Cera have an emotive soft spoken (usually) delivery and every main character, except for Liesl, has a spaz out moment in the film it seems. Michael Cera is great in this film and works wonderfully well in the world of Wes.
For me, I'd rate it an 8 out of 10. It's a leaner film, has everything I love about Wes Anderson's films, is way funnier than the previous two films, is at turns his most cartoonish and most violent film, is oddly fun watching all the punishment Korda takes throughout the film, is a delight watching the ways that father and daughter influence, change and learn from each other, is surprisingly spiritual and has an ending that, with all the shit going on in the world, was very welcome.
I loved it.
I know what to expect from his films stylistically and tonally and never get tired of them. I also find them to be nice palette cleansers and a break from the same old same old blockbusters. If you're of the same mindset, then I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it as well.
I also feel like it has a broader appeal and feel that it would be a good first Wes Anderson film for someone who's never seen his stuff.
Now having said that, it has a few violent moments, one shockingly violent for an Anderson film, in the first two minutes. If you don't like that sort of thing and want some advance warning of it, I'll put it in spoiler code below.
Anyway, if anyone else has seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Also, this might be of interest to fans of Anderson:
So....The Phoenician Scheme.
As usual when a new Wes Anderson film comes out lately you have the same old "This is the most Wes Anderson that Wes Anderson has ever Wes Andersoned" comments. And to be honest, while this has all the usual hallmarks of his films, it's a much leaner, straight forward and enjoyable film in my opinion. Also much funnier than the last couple of outings. The Grand Budapest Hotel had the onion skin "story within a story within a story within a story" format, The French Dispatch had the anthology format and Asteroid City had the "play within the play within the tv show" format. This film eschews all of that with a pretty straight forward story which is, at it's core, about a father trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Zsa Zsa Korda played by Benicio del Toro has concocted an elaborate enterprise that will essentially be both extremely profitable to him and his partners in crime as well as a positive benefit for different regions of Phoenicia. Before the film starts he's gotten agreements from the other partners to help cover the costs, but a consortium of multi-government agencies / industries conspire to break him and so raise the cost of a type of bolt, which is "the foundation of modern civil engineering". What used to be 10 for a couple of bucks goes waaaay up in price and there is now a gap in funding that must now be covered. So the film is about him revisiting all of the partners in this enterprise and trying to get more money from them to cover "the gap" and all the wacky hijinks that ensue.
In addition to all of this, Korda has survived multiple assassination attempts, and in fact the film starts with one such attempt. He summons his daughter Liesl (played by Mia Threapleton), who is determined to become a nun, and makes her his heir to take over the business (and possibly avenge him) in case he dies. Korda is a very strong willed individual who lives by the motto "Flatten what's in your way" or something to that effect. Liesl has only responded to the summons to confront him about her mothers murder when she was a child. He denies having done it or having arranged it and implicates his half brother in the deed. She wants the killer to be brought to justice so she agrees to be his heir "on a trial basis" in order to confront and bring her uncle to justice if he's the killer.
As they go on their journey around the country visiting the various partners in the scheme, Liesl is the voice of reason, compassion and forgiveness while Korda is both cunning, reckless often heartless but surprisingly warm as well. It's to the credit of the script and del Toro's portrayal of Korda that we constantly root for him. He has multiple near death experiences in the film and in these moments he has visions of (or visits) the Afterlife and in these instances are little revelatory moments of his life, past events and so on and we see the cumulative effect these have on him. We come to understand why he is the way he, understand why he's having an existential crisis and we see the effect that being around Liesl has on him (as well as the reverse) as the picture progresses.
It's just a leaner story for all the people in it, and there are a lot. Like a LOT. Beyond all the big names there's a lot of extra's in this film. All of the various partners in the scheme (Hanks, Cranston, Ahmed, Almaric, Cumberbatch, Wright and Johansson) are entertaining characters and watching Korda try to get more money out of them to cover the gap is fun. I saw one description of the film as "It's like watching a film about Tin Tin baddies without Tin TIn in it". Yeah, I guess that could fit.
The art direction, as usual, is impeccable. As I said above, with his recent films people have said "It's the most Wes Anderson that Wes Anderson has ever Wes Andersoned" or feel that he's become a parody of himself. I kind of felt that way with "The French Dispatch", but less so with "Asteroid City", and despite seeing both those claims with this film, in a weird way, it feels more restrained than those films to me. Sure, there are the usual stylistic flourishes, symetrical filming, miniatures, and so on, there's less of the trademark monotone delivery, it's there, but everytime Korda meets with one of the investors, there's a shouting match. Mia Threapleton has most of the deadpan delivery, but del Toro and Michael Cera have an emotive soft spoken (usually) delivery and every main character, except for Liesl, has a spaz out moment in the film it seems. Michael Cera is great in this film and works wonderfully well in the world of Wes.
For me, I'd rate it an 8 out of 10. It's a leaner film, has everything I love about Wes Anderson's films, is way funnier than the previous two films, is at turns his most cartoonish and most violent film, is oddly fun watching all the punishment Korda takes throughout the film, is a delight watching the ways that father and daughter influence, change and learn from each other, is surprisingly spiritual and has an ending that, with all the shit going on in the world, was very welcome.
I loved it.
I know what to expect from his films stylistically and tonally and never get tired of them. I also find them to be nice palette cleansers and a break from the same old same old blockbusters. If you're of the same mindset, then I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it as well.
I also feel like it has a broader appeal and feel that it would be a good first Wes Anderson film for someone who's never seen his stuff.
Now having said that, it has a few violent moments, one shockingly violent for an Anderson film, in the first two minutes. If you don't like that sort of thing and want some advance warning of it, I'll put it in spoiler code below.
The film starts aboard Korda's plane. In the passenger section is Korda and his assistant. There's a strange sound and Korda looks back at his assistant who's sitting in the back of the plane with his back against the wall. As we're looking at the guy there's a BOOM! and the top half of the guy is splattered against the wall while his bottom half still remains. Aside from that there's no body parts, or internal organs splattered about, just a big smear of blood on the wall. It happens crazy fast and is shocking.
Korda takes a bullet later in the film, but thanks to an item in his pocket it doesn't go in deep. He tells the guy he saved to pull it out, so we watch him reach into the small wound and remove the bullet.
There is an explosive death later, but that was not as graphic as these two events, nothing you haven't seen before.
Korda takes a bullet later in the film, but thanks to an item in his pocket it doesn't go in deep. He tells the guy he saved to pull it out, so we watch him reach into the small wound and remove the bullet.
There is an explosive death later, but that was not as graphic as these two events, nothing you haven't seen before.
Anyway, if anyone else has seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Also, this might be of interest to fans of Anderson:
