Wes Anderson's “The Grand Budapest Hotel” exclusive at Ayala Malls Cinemas on April 19
Fox Searchlight Pictures in association with Indian
Paintbrush and Studio Babelsberg present, an American Empirical Picture, “The
Grand Budapest Hotel,” directed and written by Wes Anderson and story by
Anderson & Hugo Guinness. The film
stars Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori,F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien
Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton,
Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Owen Wilson.
“The
Grand Budapest Hotel’s” protagonist named Monsieur Gustave H, the fastidious
concierge at the heart of the film, is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, a two-time
Oscar® nominee for “Schindler’s List” and “The English Patient.” Director Wes Anderson says his eighth
feature film comes from a mix of inspirations including the pre-code comedies
of the 1930’sand the stories and memoirs of Viennese writer Stefan Zweig.
Anderson set his tale in a
fictional spa town in the imaginary country of alpine Zubrowka, for which he created not only a complete visual aesthetic but also a cohesive 20th Century history mirroring Eastern Europe, with a fascist takeover in the thirties and a Communist period after that –but also a more distant past in the vein of the belle epoque.
At
the beginning of the movie, the Young Writer played by Jude Law finds himself
in conversation with the enigmatic Mr. Moustafa, the hotel’s owner, who sets
about relating the story of how he rose from the ranks of junior lobby boy to
become the proprietor of the Grand Budapest under the tutelage of Gustave.
Underneath
all of Gustave’s superficial fastidiousness is a kind of basic emotional core,
a devotedness, sentimentality and affection that provide much of the story’s
emotional center. Observes co-star
Edward Norton, whose character is in pursuit of Gustave: “Gustave is up there with the greatest characters
Wes has created and nobody could have played it more perfectly than Ralph. Gustave is contradictory – he has this
incredibly haughty self-righteous view of proper values and at the same time he
is ferociously loyal. He’s like a glimpse into an old world right before it
disappears.”
The
main action of the story kicks off with the sudden and mysterious death of
84-year-old dowager countess Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe und Taxis,
a.k.a. Madame D. In the role of Madame
D. is Tilda Swinton, who won an Oscar® for her work in “Michael Clayton.” For
this part, Swinton had to spend almost five hours each morning in hair and
makeup in preparation to play the 84-year-old widow. Anderson notes, “With
Tilda, we had this chance to age her, and I think she really enjoyed doing
that, and helped make it something special. I feel like she really latched on
to how to play this person at that age.”
Madame
D.’s death sets in motion a scramble to lay claim to her vast fortune. Leading
the charge is her son, Dmitri, the film’s ruthless and darkly comic main
villain, played by Adrien Brody, who previously starred in “The Darjeeling
LImited.: “He’s the bad seed, he’s the
one who causes the trouble – and he was really wonderful in this role of
Dmitri,” says Anderson.
Brody
says of the character: “Dmitri is
powerful and greedy, a man used to getting what he wants. M. Gustave is a
threat to this. It is revealed that he was the much younger lover of his
mother, who she ultimately bequeathed her fortune to, so wouldn’t you have it
in for him? Everything about Dmitri is
dark: his clothes, hair, thoughts and attitude.
The beauty of comedy is that you can heighten all of these qualities to
the point where they become amusing. The objective was to find a balance
between being legitimately ominous and also hilarious – Dmitri had to be
both.”
Dmitri
also has an accessory: a henchman named Jopling, a thug in a leather coat,
brass-knuckles and high-heeled boots, who is portrayed by Willem Dafoe. Dafoe
says that despite his previous work with Anderson, the script for “The Grand
Budapest Hotel” was surprising. “I thought it was really interesting, almost a
throwback to Lubitsch and Wilder comedies, with a caper quality and all these
characters coming in and out,” he says.
“Wes captures a spirit that is so appealing.”
It
didn’t surprise Dafoe that the script attracted such a strong and award-winning
cast. “It’s unusual in today’s cinema
for a director to have the heavy personal stamp Wes does so a lot of people
want to work with him,” he explains. “It makes for an extremely creative
atmosphere.”
Playing
Deputy Vilmos Kovacs, the attorney representing Madame D’s estate, is Jeff
Goldblum, who previously worked with Anderson on “The Life Aquatic with Steve
Zissou.” Goldblum highlights some of the
cultural and political elements at work in the film:“Monsieur Gustave is a rare
and spectacular light of hope and inspiration – courteous, generous and refined
– in this world in which fascists are coming to power,” he says. Indeed, Dmitri and his cohort are headed down
a path toward fascism, and this is one of the elements that flesh out the
antagonism between him and Monsieur Gustave.
Norton
also points to some of the unique behind-the-scenes camaraderie on the
production. “I think for a lot of actors
in my generation, Wes has been a kind of polestar of personal creative
vision. He does something that is
uniquely heartfelt, yet hilarious. Wes’s
films are a lot like this story in that they create an alternative kind of family,
which is very romantic for actors. The
cast is a blend of some of Wes’s old gang with a new gang and there was great
camaraderie. It was almost like he
cultivated among the cast and the crew the feeling of The Society of the
Crossed Keys – the concierges of all the great hotels of the world – who have
this complete sense of unity when called upon.”
When
the law does catch up with Gustave, he finds himself in the least imaginable of
places for a man of his sensibilities: Check-point 19 Criminal Internment Camp,
a dank, medieval-era prison, surrounded by barbed wire and a moat full of
crocodiles. He soon befriends four fellow inmates and winds up at the center of
an elaborate escape plot they’ve cooked up. The brains of the plot is Ludwig,
an especially rough, tattooed convict with a bald head, played by Harvey
Keitel, who also appeared in “Moonrise Kingdom,” and for whom Anderson wrote
the part.
"The Grand
Budapest Hotel" will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas
nationwide starting April 19 (Black Saturday).
Here is the official trailer of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" :
Post a Comment