Pass the Popcorn: Movies from where I Sit

Yesterday my movie buddy and I went to see "The Grand Budapest Hotel", Wes Anderson's new film.  It's quite funny and delightful, with an amazing cast, but Ralph Fiennes is practically the whole show.  His "lobby boy", an actor in his first film, is one note but perfect, with big liquid black eyes and a drawn on moustache, and the stare of an ideal straight man.  As usual, the set design is the real star, and the colorization; you can just be hypnotized by the visuals if the sound were to be cut off.  But this story is more solid, like "Fantastic Mr. Fox", with action and drama, all over the top.  Set supposedly in 1932, before the second World War that changed the old Europe forever and left many rich or titled people dead or in exile, it makes fun of luxury hotels while loving every inch of them.  There was a concept of service that is long gone now.  Maybe it only ever existed in the movies of the 1930s. 

Monsieur Gustave is a lost soul who has made his way up the ladder to Concierge.  He rules his palace with exactitude and love.  He has a thing for old ladies, and when one of them dies (Tilda Swinton) he inherits a painting and her estate, but is hounded by her relatives (led by Adrien Brody with the most electrifying hairstyle).  He and his lobby boy try to escape, are put in prison, and while all this action is going on, we glimpse Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, Wilem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray and Anderson's irregulars.  It's great fun, except for a cat being thrown out the window.  "Moonrise Kingdom" had a dog being killed.  I don't understand why Anderson finds that humorous, and it makes me suspect psychopathic tendencies he is unaware of but seem bizarre and misplaced.

The story is told as a story within a story, so we see the lobby boy, now old (F. Murray Abraham), being interviewed by a journalist (Jude Law).  This 1950s setting makes the post communist world seem in stark contrast to the vanished world, and the barren, utilitarian design seem bleak and tragic.

I'm so happy to see Ralph Fiennes get a great comic role and run around the bases with it.  The film makes us reflect on how we hug our myths of "the old days" and why.  Underneath all the fun is the orphan nature of the lobby boys, the violence they have fled, and the horror of the world outside the door of the hotel.  We construct our stories to escape, and Anderson gives us the guilt free joy of playing along with us.  His dollhouse world is as rich as his imagination and ours.  It's like a balloon ride, where everything below is tiny and manageable, unless you think about it too hard.