[film] The Grand Budapest Hotel [8-Mar-14]
Wednesday, March 12th, 2014 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthSomewhere in contemporary Eastern Europe, a young woman adds a hotel key to those already adorning the memorial of a famous writer.
Cut to 1985, when the famous writer (played by Tom Wilkinson) is filming an interview about his work.
Cut to 1968, when the famous writer (now rather younger and played by Jude Law) arrives at a run-down hotel somewhere in the Soviet Bloc. He meets an elderly man (F. Murray Abraham) who, it turns out, is the owner of the hotel. They have dinner, and the proprietor tells the writer about his youth as a lobby boy --
Cut to 1932, the heyday of the Grand Budapest Hotel, where a new lobby boy named Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori) is learning the tricks of the trade from the fabulous and flamboyant concierge, Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes is excellent, and extremely funny, in this role.) M. Gustave H. negotiates the world in a cloud of Eau de Panache, trading favours and dropping names, ruling the hotel with an iron fist in a glove of the most fabulously decadent velvet. (Occasionally his impeccable facade slips, revealing the man beneath. This is never not funny.) Despite a definite air of camp, he is very popular with the ladies (the older and wealthier the better), and their affections are sincerely reciprocated. Then one of them (played by the glorious Tilda Swinton) dies, willing M. Gustave a valuable painting, and he and Zero find themselves on the run, accused of murder, and embroiled in a Dastardly Plot masterminded by the dead woman's family, who have a secret or two of their own.
The flight and the pursuit at the core of the film reminded me of The Adventures of Tintin (original comic books, not the recent CGI version) -- I think it was the exaggerated expressions, the knees-up sprints, the broad-brush plot developments (and indeed the broad-brush characterisation). There is a prison break. There is a pursuit on skis. There are implausibly bloodless shoot-outs, and comically menacing henchmen. ['Men' used advisedly. There are very few women in this film, and only one -- Agatha, Zero's sweetheart -- who gets more than a couple of lines.] It was all a vastly enjoyable, beautifully filmed romp. Not quite as light-hearted as I'd expected from the trailer, though: the last third of the film is overshadowed by the threat of war, even though it's only 1932 and the setting is a wholly fictional East European country.
Very enjoyable, even for someone like me who has poor facial recognition and thus missed half the cameos ... Willem Dafoe! Adrien Brody! Harvey Keitel!
Or so I am told :)
Cut to 1985, when the famous writer (played by Tom Wilkinson) is filming an interview about his work.
Cut to 1968, when the famous writer (now rather younger and played by Jude Law) arrives at a run-down hotel somewhere in the Soviet Bloc. He meets an elderly man (F. Murray Abraham) who, it turns out, is the owner of the hotel. They have dinner, and the proprietor tells the writer about his youth as a lobby boy --
Cut to 1932, the heyday of the Grand Budapest Hotel, where a new lobby boy named Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori) is learning the tricks of the trade from the fabulous and flamboyant concierge, Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes is excellent, and extremely funny, in this role.) M. Gustave H. negotiates the world in a cloud of Eau de Panache, trading favours and dropping names, ruling the hotel with an iron fist in a glove of the most fabulously decadent velvet. (Occasionally his impeccable facade slips, revealing the man beneath. This is never not funny.) Despite a definite air of camp, he is very popular with the ladies (the older and wealthier the better), and their affections are sincerely reciprocated. Then one of them (played by the glorious Tilda Swinton) dies, willing M. Gustave a valuable painting, and he and Zero find themselves on the run, accused of murder, and embroiled in a Dastardly Plot masterminded by the dead woman's family, who have a secret or two of their own.
The flight and the pursuit at the core of the film reminded me of The Adventures of Tintin (original comic books, not the recent CGI version) -- I think it was the exaggerated expressions, the knees-up sprints, the broad-brush plot developments (and indeed the broad-brush characterisation). There is a prison break. There is a pursuit on skis. There are implausibly bloodless shoot-outs, and comically menacing henchmen. ['Men' used advisedly. There are very few women in this film, and only one -- Agatha, Zero's sweetheart -- who gets more than a couple of lines.] It was all a vastly enjoyable, beautifully filmed romp. Not quite as light-hearted as I'd expected from the trailer, though: the last third of the film is overshadowed by the threat of war, even though it's only 1932 and the setting is a wholly fictional East European country.
Very enjoyable, even for someone like me who has poor facial recognition and thus missed half the cameos ... Willem Dafoe! Adrien Brody! Harvey Keitel!
Or so I am told :)
