The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson’s latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel may be his grandest work yet.  It spans four different time periods, each with their own color pallets and aspect ratios.  Yet, all these periods, points of view and fields of vision gel into one beautiful, energetic and whimsical story.

We are first introduced to what I believe is the present tense, where someone ventures to a snowy cemetery to read The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Then, the 1980s is where the author discusses why he wrote the book.  Then, the 1960s is where the author (played here by Jude Law) stays in the hotel (in an updated, less grand style), meets the owner and hears his story.  Then, 1933 is where the actual story takes place, with the hotel and the cast in their prime.

In 1933, Zero (Tony Revolori) becomes employed as a lobby boy at the Grand Budapest Hotel.  The meticulous concierge, M. Gustav (Ralph Fiennes) takes Zero under his wing and the boy becomes Gustave’s right hand man.  Upon the sudden death of Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), Gustav’s lover (one of many old, vain, rich, blonde women), and with the country on the verge of war, they set out for her funeral and will reading to learn, to her children’s dismay, that she left Gustav a piece of art.  Soon, Gustav is suspected of murder.  He, with Zero’s help, must set things straight, even as The Grand Budapest Hotel becomes the center of the action.

I believe this is Anderson’s most beautiful film yet, and completely deserving of its nomination for best cinematography.  So many of the scenes are filled edge to edge with rich details.  Every shot is laid out like its own standing work of art.  I always admire how Anderson focuses on the use of symmetry and here, with such colorful costumes and details to each scene, it becomes a work of art like never seen before.

While the film is lovely to look at, it is also very funny in its own quirky way.  Many of the film’s funniest moments are a bit odd, sudden and things that you feel a bit bad laughing at.  Like the hilarious picture of Madame D.’s body found dead printed on the front page of the newspaper.  Or when Willem Dafoe’s character tosses a cat out the window, or the unfortunate injury he gives Jeff Goldblum’s character.  These moments which could have a tearful tone in another story, are weirdly hilarious here.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is nominated for a whopping nine Oscars.  Wes Anderson is up for his first Academy Award as best director.  The other nominations include Best Picture, cinematography, original screenplay, film editing, costume design, hair and makeup styling, production design and original score.  Why Ralph Fiennes was overlooked for best actor baffles me, as his performance seems to move and lead the film. Until I become an Academy voter, I can only complain.

While I loved this film, I realize that The Grand Budapest Hotel may not be everyone’s cup of tea.  It is a bit odd, quirky and very fast paced for such a vast film.  However, in the right frame of mind, it is fun, funny and smart.  And for anyone with eyes, I believe this is one of the most beautiful and well shot films this year.

“You’re the first of the official death squads to whom we’ve been formally introduced.  How do you do?”

Schindler’s List

Nearly ten years ago, my first trip to Europe included a visit to Dachau, a once functioning concentration camp, now a Holocaust memorial.  At that age, I had only read about the Holocaust in Eli Wiesel’s Night, The Diary of Anne Frank and our watered-down explanations in history books.  Walking into a place where you know some of the darkest hours of mankind have taken place is horribly indescribable.  Before exploring the grounds, I remember a large exhibit of photos of the camp during operation, many very graphic.  I tried not to show it, but there were moments where my stomach felt heavy, my head light and my legs were nothing but splintering toothpicks.  As I explored under a blue sky and healthy green trees in the distance, all I could see where those shades of gray photos.  The grounds were clear, incinerators clean of ash and memorials were inserted, but I could see what those places had once held.  I was standing where countless innocent people had been murdered and disposed of with no remorse.  Few experiences in my life have ever been so somber and left me with so many nightmares.  Schindler’s List is as close as I dare to get to reliving that visit to Dachau.

It’s amazing how Steven Spieldberg has the ability to finely tune into our emotions.  From the red-blooded excitement in Raiders of the Lost Ark to the wonder, magic and childhood fantasy of E.T.  And then there is the bleak sorrow and heavy burden of Schindler’s List, one of the few movies on this blog I will refuse to watch alone.  I put it off for two days, knowing the depressive state I would be in the day after.  It is upon me now, shoulders tense, brain fuzzy and eyes drooping over the mix of lack of sleep and nightmares.  I’m begging myself to drag these words out of me, put this film behind me and try not to dwell upon one of the most vile moments in humanity.

Ralph Fiennes plays Amon Goeth, one of the most shocking representations of a human being I’ve seen on film.  He’s an SS officer who lives in a mansion overlooking the work camp.  There he lives with his young Jewish maid, Helen (Embeth Davidtz), who rightly fears him.  It is disgusting how he enjoys killing.  In one scene, we see Amon shirtless, shooting any Jew still enough, like target practice, on his balcony.  Helen, who’s naked in the bed behind him is appalled, “Oh God, not again.”  When he’s had his fill of shooting, he strolls over to the toilet and takes a piss with the door wide open.  He has no descentcy in any sense.  In another scene, we’re shown how he will line men up and just start shooting every other man.

Personally, I would not be able to justify this film being in color.  In my visit to Dachau, I had never seen Schinder’s List and yet, I too was seeing a black and white world.  There are a few instances of color in the bulk of the film: the flame of a candle lit for the Sabath and a little girl wearing a red coat.  We see her when Oskar first witnesses Nazi’s ruthlessly murdering people in the ghetto.  This is happening all around the girl, yet she seems to stroll through innocently.  I’ve heard numerous ideas on the red girl’s symbolism and have read that she is based on a true story.  What I felt was that her fate was the shift in Oskar’s casually letting Jews work for him, to making sure to save as many as possible.

The thing I have to remember, is that while Schindler’s List holds nothing back when portraying the ruthless horrors of the holocaust, it is a story of hope and how one man gave and risked everything to save over a thousand lives.  Liam Neeson portrays Oskar Schindler, who in the film is has just as much intelligence as integrity.  He is a German businessman, a member of the Nazi party and a good man.  The end of the film, we are shown the surviving Schindlerjuden visiting Oskar’s grave and given statistics on how the people he saved have populated in comparison to Holocaust survivors in Poland.  The figures are astounding.

While I do not enjoy watching Schindler’s List, just as I didn’t enjoy visiting Dachau,  I feel that it is a good experience.  This is one of those films that every good human being should see.  The Holocaust cannot just be swept away and the least Spielberg could do to honor the memory of over six million victims is to make a movie about their story.  The least you can do is watch it.

“There will be generations because of what you did.”

The Reader

From the trailers and movie posters, it can be easy to dismiss The Reader as just another romance where Kate Winslet is naked all over the place again.  It’s not like that, at least not for the whole film.  Let me explain.

The whole story is spread over thirty years, beginning in Germany in 1958, where young Michael Berg (David Kross) gets violently ill outside Hanna Schmitz’s (Kate Winslet) apartment building.  She helps clean him up and guides him home in the pouring rain.  After Michael is well again, he goes to thank Hanna and they begin a sexual relationship.

This is the part of the film that makes it easy to write off Winslet’s Oscar winning performance as an award for most boob-shots, but she gets so much better later in the film.  The majority of her scenes with young Michael are in the nude, because their relationship is basically that Michael comes straight over after school, reads to Hanna for a while and they have sex.

Now, you might cringe and slap Hanna with some predatory label once you realize she’s in her thirties and Michael is only fifteen, but I don’t believe the relationship is based on sex to Hanna.  She wants to be read to and can sense what a healthy young man like Michael will gladly take as reward.  It’s an efficient trade-off.  We may assume she’s taking advantage of Michael, but he’s young and enjoying himself too much to even think of that, until she’s suddenly gone.

The story then flashes forward to Michael as a young law student, sitting in and studying a war-crime trial, where Hanna is trying to defend herself.  It’s at this point in the film that Winslet earns that trophy.  We see where she got that German efficiency, her matter-of-fact tone and can justify a boy’s first love for some story time.  When Michael realizes something that can turn the ugly trial around for Hanna, can he face her again or will he let her pay for hurting him?

The rest of the story young Michael is replaced by Ralph Fiennes and Winslet dawns a lot of makeup to create the aging Hanna.  I don’t want to give anything away, so just see this film.  I was honestly surprised at how intriguing it was and how much I enjoyed it.  There is a lot of sex and nudity in the first hour, which is fine because it helps define the relationship and isn’t pointless, but after that the story gets exponentially better until the very end.

I know I keep going on about this, but I do believe this is Winslet’s greatest role.  And Hanna is such a hard character to pin-point, you can’t simply dismiss her as a predator or good or evil or anything.  There’s a part of her that is ignorant, naive or lacking in something, yet can we really let that slide?  Winslet’s portrayal of this simple, yet mind-boggling woman is exactly why everyone should see The Reader.

“The notion of secrecy is central to western literature. You may say, the whole idea of character is defined by people holding specific information which for various reasons, sometimes perverse, sometimes noble, they are determined not to disclose.”

 

Quiz Show

In 1957, Sputnik was a threat, television was brand new and game shows were all the rage.

The most popular game show is Twenty-one, a quiz show where contestants put in a soundproof booth, grilled with multi-part questions, with no multiple choice and no knowledge of their competitor’s score.  It makes Who Wants to be Millionaire look like patty-cake.

For the past few weeks, Herb Stempel (John Turturro), a dorky looking Jewish man from Queens, has been winning Twenty-One.  When the show’s producers find Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) a clean cut college professor looking to play on another game show, Tic Tac Toe, they redirect him to play on Twenty-One.  They want him to overthrow Herb since his ratings have leveled out.  Besides, Charles is much easier on the eyes and can make intelligence look cool.  Dan Enright (David Paymer) is sure that Charles will be a hit in homes across America, but first they have to make sure Herb will fall.

So they tell Herb how he has to answer one question: What film won Best Picture in 1955?  They want Herb to answer On the Waterfront and take a dive.  Why did they have to pick that question?  Herb knows the correct answer is Marty, he loved the movie so much he saw it three times.  For Herb, this isn’t just a moral dilemma, but he’s prided himself on being a know-it-all, how can he take a dive on such an easy and close to the heart question?  Herb is told by Dan Enright that he will be on other shows if he takes the dive, and Herb believes him.

Those moments in the booth, under the hot lights, where all of America is waiting for Herb to answer, “Marty” are so tense.  Everyone knows the answer, as they watch they say it, as if trying to help him out.  He sweats, he knows the right answer but he can have a career in television with the wrong answer.  As he chokes out, “On the Waterfront,” everyone is so disappointed.

But Herb is quickly forgotten, now they have shining Charlie to worship and adore.  He even gets his face on the cover of Time magazine.  All he has to do is act intelligent and say the answers NBC gives him.  The setup seems too easy, until Herb lets the secrets behind the show loose and investigator Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow) goes snooping around for the truth.

John Turturro plays Herb, at first I couldn’t remember where I had seen that face before, upon a quick IMDB search I couldn’t believe this was the same person who played Pete in Oh Brother Where Art Thou?  Here Turturro pours so much eccentric energy into Herb, he’s wonderfully odd and passionate, but those qualities don’t always look good when trying to prove a big television company for fixing their game.

The moral issues faced by the characters, mainly Herb and Charles, are the central issue of the story.  Each week, they go on television with the answers memorized and the outcome all ready known.  When Charlie is visiting with his family, his father doesn’t exactly call half an hour of a quiz show a hard day’s work, but at the same time, he feels pride in his son.  Charlie is a good man just wrapped up in the whole quiz show plot.  When things finally get exposed, he hopes he can just lay low and avoid the shame of cheating and deceiving the whole nation.

We’ve seen Robert Redford’s work before in Ordinary People.  His skills only sharpened into the ’90s.  He makes quiz show feel like part big cooperate corruption, part moral drama and part investigation crime film.  The story, array of characters and detailed image of 1957 America he creates is more intelligent than any quiz show.

Before you write Quiz Show and Slumdog Millionaire into the same category, know that these films are wildly different.  The only real similarity between them is a game show background.  I cannot recommend one or the other because they are so opposite and both have great ideas to offer.  I would recommend Quiz Show to anyone who enjoys a good conspiracy, moral drama or 1950’s setting.  Of course, if you enjoy John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes or Rob Marrow this is a must see.

“Sixty-four thousand dollars for a question, I hope they are asking you the meaning of life.”