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Rating: Wes Anderson is like milk: some can digest it and some can't. I won't waste your time: "The Grand Budapest Hotel" won’t change the opposing opinions of critics and fans.
It is meant to be a reflection, not too original, centered on the old continent full of borders, ostracism, and distrust towards what is unknown, during the time leading up to the outbreak of World War II. Nationalisms are about to take over: it is a shaky period during which everything appears gray, gloomy, and characterized by a prevailing fear. The train scene, which opens and closes the film with a Giotto-like circle, although it makes you smile, I don't think it deviates much from reality. Thousands of people vanished into thin air for a document not in order, a word too many. In total contrast to all this, here is the rainbow of the monumental and impeccable Grand Budapest Hotel.
It seems like the best Burton in a colorful version because, although this film does not deal with cheerful themes, it does so with an unreal and disarming nonchalance using bright colors, almost dazzling, for which it might be necessary to wear a pair of sunglasses. There are many masterful shots in perfect symmetry; several long takes to introduce scenes, and, as in previous works, Anderson does not shy away from using vertical scrolling within buildings. It is an ironic work, only seemingly escapist thanks to the construction of an exaggerated plot, bordering on farce, yet permeated by an underlying melancholy that does not undermine the whole. The attempt to emulate Ernst Lubitsch in "To Be or Not to Be" seems clear to me, but the comparison is inappropriate because this film, although successful, is several categories below one of the five greatest comedies of all time.
The co-protagonist is a mixed-race boy who seems a blend of different ethnicities: half Arab and half European, he embodies the stereotype of the immigrant on whom all racial prejudices must necessarily fall. Anderson wants to dedicate this film to an Austrian pacifist writer who did not have an easy life expressing his thoughts in the '20s and '30s. Amusing in this regard is the choice to turn the SS into the Zig Zag Division (ZZ).
With a smile, following the fragrant trail of the impeccable and dandy concierge of the hotel (Ralph Fiennes), we will get to know the excesses of the various protagonists who will clash over matters related to a rich inheritance. If in "Moonrise Kingdom" the object under the magnifying glass was the 1960s, I find this work more jumbled because, rather than embodying a society, the cast seems more like a collection of often fitting, disconnected caricatures. Assembling a monumental cast in an endless number of cameos is the work of high fashion tailoring. Small appearances (Bill Murray/Owen Wilson/Harvey Keitel/Edward Norton/Jeff Goldblum) alongside more substantial ones (Willem Dafoe/Adrien Brody/Jude Law) provide a delicious garnish to the two protagonists. In my opinion, Anderson does an excellent job and overall no actor appears out of place. This aspect is crucial not to break the rhythm of a work that, with the numerous scene changes imposed by the director, is not linear at all.
To consider, as I have read elsewhere, "Grand Budapest Hotel" as an aesthetic comedy devoid of content would be heretical, but that does not take away from the fact that visual beauty is objectively overwhelming and takes precedence over the rest. It might be normal to leave the cinema feeling light and happy, flaunting a profusion of smiles with all thirty-two teeth, only realizing afterward the depth and weight of the themes addressed. When in the '90s as a pimply beardless teenager I “watched” with extreme care and punctual frequency the often smudged photographs of Claudia Schiffer, I didn’t ask too many questions about her IQ. In a similar way, goosebumps-inducing shots, impeccable use of colors and camera, combined with sets worthy of a furniture show; all this partly overshadows, and perhaps initially compensates for, the film's small shortcomings that sometimes take on the features of a fashion show.
In a word: not the best Wes Anderson yet this work is eye candy. Three stars are too few, four seem excessive.
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