The Grand Budapest Hotel. I seem to be an outlier in that I don’t love or hate Wes Anderson uniformly. There are a few films of his I really like, and many that I don’t care for. But I think that Grand Budapest is his best work. It is quite fun, entertaining, and has a lot of rewatch value as a swashbuckling romp. But I also really appreciate all the details about how it is reflecting Stefan Zweig’s work and his sense of loss after the breakup of the multi-cultural empires after WW1 into ethnostates and the seeming end of the cultural output and meltingpot of Austria-Hungary. It is trying to cover the tragedies of Eastern Europe in the interwar period, though it stays mostly in the background and not addressed directly. Even if it is a bit reactionary in its idolization of the aristocracy and their supposed past sophistication and urbanity.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. I seem to be an outlier in that I don’t love or hate Wes Anderson uniformly. There are a few films of his I really like, and many that I don’t care for. But I think that Grand Budapest is his best work. It is quite fun, entertaining, and has a lot of rewatch value as a swashbuckling romp. But I also really appreciate all the details about how it is reflecting Stefan Zweig’s work and his sense of loss after the breakup of the multi-cultural empires after WW1 into ethnostates and the seeming end of the cultural output and meltingpot of Austria-Hungary. It is trying to cover the tragedies of Eastern Europe in the interwar period, though it stays mostly in the background and not addressed directly. Even if it is a bit reactionary in its idolization of the aristocracy and their supposed past sophistication and urbanity.