Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Grand Budapest Hotel

This is topic The Grand Budapest Hotel in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-24-2014, 07:09 PM:

This story in a story in a story (sorry if I missed a level) directed and written by Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, The Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums) is a great, sometimes dark, but still very colorful comedy in and around a fictive, (former) luxury hotel in a fictive Sudetenland-esque setting. Just like his previous film (Moonrise Kingdom), this movie feels like a postcard from a forgotten time and place come to live.

Primarily set at the end of the interbellum, it revolves around the adventures of concierge legend Gustave H. and his lobby boy, Zero Moustafa.

Although, in my humble opinion, this movie was totally hilarious, the jokes in this one are mostly in the many details. Only half the theater was laughing, while the other half was mostly wondering what all the fuss was about.

Adding to the unique style of the movie is the weird switcheroo between aspect ratios and camera equipment, used to somewhat match the look of the material to the depicted time period.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 03-28-2014, 06:03 PM:

CINEMA: 13th Avenue Warren, Wichita, KS
AUDITORIUM: 12
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Three stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: A woman dies. Wackiness ensues.

Wow. This is a Wes Anderson movie on steroids. There's overwhelming detail to the sets that will have people pausing frames just to try and take it all in when this comes out on home video. Some seriously amazing sets here. Anderson's trademark signage is everywhere, much of it on screen so briefly you don't actually have time to read it. There are cameos galore. And loads of silliness that includes an amazing almost Keystone Kops-like prison escape. And that's what makes this movie good as opposed to great...it's a bit TOO silly.

Interesting to note (as Marcel touched on)...Anderson uses multiple aspect ratios set to periods through the movie. The screen was set to flat, but modern (well...80's?) scenes were shown letterboxed wide, while the thirties scenes were basically square with side bars. An interesting choice considering nothing about the dialogue or shooting style made any attempt to reflect the period. And one scene where a guy was shooting a video was actually pillarboxed.

The roughly half-filled auditorium was probably 90 percent elderly women. They seemed to enjoy it, though I overheard one saying to her friend afterward "That was entertaining...but weird."

Which pretty much sums up Anderson movies.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-02-2014, 11:54 PM:

I agree Sam, I saw this with my Mom and a friend of hers, they too had the same reaction - "funny, but odd" ... that's Wes Anderson for you... [Big Grin]

I also really liked the rich color palette that Anderson shot/DI'd.