Upon the last Wes Anderson release, The French Dispatch, I commented; “I think we’re getting to a point where we are desperately taking Wes Anderson for granted”. I continued; “It’s no great ability to stuff a frame, but to fill a frame with precision and craft so that every single detail is profoundly beautiful or relevant may be the most difficult task in any director or cinematographer’s arsenal, not to mention set designer”. I continued; “On the podcast I have talked before of how my favourite Andersons are indeed the ones where this impeccable craft is used to utilise a specific narrative or story, aswell as of course the always inevitable intriguing characters”. Here I feel despite an overwhelming branch of surrealism and metatextuality about art, Asteroid City is a joyous return to the exact fashion of Anderson film I adore, where the personal is in the forefront.
 |
| Credit |
Everything is perfect. I mean that. Everything in this film is perfect. Your enjoyment milage may just vary personally. I think even just writing this review my liking of this film has grown. It grows with every thought I have of it, whether it be recalling a specific moment of beautiful composition, or having a moment of surrealism open up to me in a way it hadn’t as of yet. The core of Asteroid City is one that I feel still eludes me, however the heart of it does not. This is a film above all else it seems that reckons with how we present and attempt to dissect human emotion through theatre and film, and how even perhaps how absurd art and even emotion is within the grand scheme of the solar system. Now from the off the film presents itself as a Russian doll showing us both the film of a play, how the original play was made and a few spare and curious short stories from the world of behind the scenes of the play. The worlds clash and crash into one another in ways that at times worked for me and at other times didn’t work for me, again, perhaps this is due to the film making a few choices that on the surface don’t actually make figurative sense in the world Anderson has created. I mean it only takes a bit of mental extrapolation, however the fact that we are watching a “film” paralleled not with the behind the scenes of a film being made, but rather a play, is something that didn’t exactly gel with me. It’s something that’s waned, however is a small stumbling block for me. Now the film oozes intentionality and Anderson’s sure hand never faults. Neither does the impeccable composition of Barney Pilling’s editing nor Robert Yeoman’s astoundingly beautiful cinematography, nor even the subtle music of Alexandre Desplat. Anderson has made a film that with one simple decision to remove the Russian doll aspect would easily have been one his simpler and more enjoyable films of date, but Anderson has never taken the easy route and instead here makes us do the work and reckon with what we’re watching as we’re watching it. That can be a distancing experiment by design and the film effects one over time rather than immediately grasping a viewer with the immediate joys of a Grand Budapest for example.
The star
studded casts of Anderson films are in themselves a whole other factor in the
figures filmography. This film is filmed with something that goes beyond cameos
as they are normally though of (although in the role of The Alien, the film
does feature one truly excellent one), this film features excellent actors in
roles and parts that are sometimes less than ten lines and have no major flash,
however they all deliver great work perfectly fitting the world and build a
sense of realism with us oddly never brushing against the fact that the film
features many huge names. There is even a point early one where a major actor is
used for a picture and the idea crossed my mind whether or not that would
simply be the last time we see that actress on the screen, as the idea would
not surpass me at this stage in Anderons’ oeuvre as an absurd concept. To name
a few performers would be futile almost as this ensemble in its purest form and
every single person gives an excellent performance, however the commendation
must be on Anderson for bringing all of these varied stars and performers into
a world and have everything and everyone be on the same page. This is beyond
Altman where a lot of the time the characters and tones can clash scene to
scene, this is a film where the tone is so razor thin between knowing and
falling apart that I am once again astounded. Did I enjoy this film wholly and
thoroughly? No, on a first watch I can’t say that I did. Will that alter? I
think it seems so, it’s altered after all in some ways already.
An 8/10 that is as grave as it is light and amusing, beautifully composed with its core of meta-textuality, which on first watch did rob some of the power of each section of the film’s two clear halves. On a rewatch understanding the nature of the film and its ambitions regarding the nature of art and the cosmos, I may have the film grow on me over time. But as always in any case the level of craft on display from the off is beyond astounding and the beautiful widescreen of this film brings an expansive epic-ness that I have longed for some time with Anderson. This feels like Anderson bursting out of the dollhouse in some ways. But have no confusion, the dollhouse is still marvellous, the Russian doll aspect is as engrossing as it is distancing – and all in this films case to serve a tale of severe emotionality and conceptualizing about art itself. This is the sort of film that mocks with hearty humour those who discuss Anderson and his team as a group of purely surface level creators
P.S. Bryan Cranston as a pseudo Rod Serling figure was playing right into my wheel house in ways I didn’t even realise we’re possible. Was it fully utilised? No, but in this current era of Anderson, it is very rare that we get a film that does not feature an abundance of characters and performances that we don’t wish we could spend a whole lot more time with, even if we are never going to get it. I am yet to decide whether or not I prefer having a whole lot of things I love in an Anderson film or just one major thing – which is a horridly composed and reductive sentence. But to say too that those earlier films are only about “one major thing” is entirely reductive in itself in a different way.
- - Thomas Carruthers
 – Review){kind=link}
0 Comments