Reddit reviews The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I haven't seen all of Wes Anderson's films but he's definitely not insubstantial.

I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel last year and just finished reading Matt Zoller Seitz' fantastic 250-page book pretty much all about that film. An insubstantial film can not be written about for 250 pages.

There's loads to this film. Inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig, it can be read as an allegory (as /u/UrNotAMachine says) or just about how History can invade and destroy all of our "normal" lives. And about how stories are passed down and become stories (the framing devices accentuate this). About how we tell stories - some of what would be important plot points in normal films are glossed over because of who is telling the story and in what context.

I mean, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a really dark story... if you just think about it or read a synopsis this is obvious. I think it's incredible on it's own how light and chirpy the film can seem despite the seriousness of it's content.

The film can be seen about the end of illusion... Seitz quotes Sweig here:

>There's a wonderful quote from The World of Yesterday, Zweig's memoir, which he completed and mailed to his editor in 1942, two days before he and his wife took their own lives in Brazil: "The generation of my parents and my grandparents were better off, they lived their lives from one end to the other quietly, in a straight line. All the same, I do not know whether I envy them. For they drowsed their lives away removed from all true bitterness, from malice and the force of destiny... We... for whom comfort has become and old legend, and security a childish dream, have felt tension from pole to pole of our being, the terror of something always new in every fiber. Every hour of our years was linked to the fate of the world. In sorrow and in joy we have lived through time and history far beyond our small lives, while they knew nothing beyond themselves.... Every one of us, therefore, even the least of the human race, knows a thousand times more about reality today than even the wisest of our forebears. But nothing was given to use freely; we paid the price in full".
Anderson has taken the dark sorrow of Stefan Zweig and joined it to his own sly melancholies to make a film that moves us because it is infinitely capable of disarming before it wounds us. In creating an imaginary world to speak about the end of illusion, Anderson court s a kind of literary double jeopardy. As with the best fables, however, his unreality is more emotionally vibrant than the truth.

Long quote, but I think it effectively shows the brilliance of Wes Anderson's vision.

The book also contains pretty in-depth interviews with many members of the cast... it's clear lots of thought was put into every aspect of the film - by Ralph Fiennes in how to portray Gustave H, a character inspired by a mutual friend of Wes Anderson and Hugo Guiness (and visually based on Stefan Zweig himself, to an extent, as also the young and old author is); by Adam Stockhausen in scouting for suitable locations and designing the elaborate sets; by Alexandre Desplat in composing suitable music which effectively gives a European vibe - and so on for everyone who worked on the film.

Honestly I think it's incredibly the amount of shtick Wes Anderson gets simply because of the way he films. He films in a pretty damn unique way, and manages to work around all the limitations of it - developing his own, unique, but highly effective (and highly funny) filming style.

My SO got me a hitachi magic wand which I'm pretty fucking excited about, but tied really close with that was the Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel book he gave me, which is a full-color hardback with behind the scenes photos, interviews, essays, etc. about the movie, which is one of my all-time favorites. He was super on point with his gifts this year.

Check out this and this book if you want to know more about his influences. He talks about them at great length.