Stories within stories are the new normal for Wes Anderson. Ever since The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), an already distinct live-action aesthetic has become even more precise. In this Roald Dahl adaptation (the first of a handful of shorts made for Netflix, all based on short stories from the writer), a vignetted approach employed in Budapest, The French Dispatch (2021) and this year's Asteroid City is applied as we are treated to a Matroyshka doll of…
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Easy Virtue 1928
Another undervalued, if only lightly, Hitchcock. At points, credulity is stretched and the plot doesn’t quite fit filmic structure. Our opening movement compels and is dynamic but we do fall into a malaise, with interest spread thinly across not that much plot.
As always, ways are found to keep visual interest. There’s so much imagination in these early works and not in a way that feels like rudimentary experimentation. There’s confidence and skill.
The story of a wronged woman —…
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Do You Like to Read? 2012
This promotional short for Moonrise Kingdom is actually a great preparatory tool for Anderson’s new series of Roald Dahl shorts. The quirky wrap around, beautifully framed and appealingly designed, is typical Anderson. The content itself, though, is verbatim readings of books with light visual accompaniment.
The written word is clearly something Anderson holds dear but also considers as substantively different to other methods of storytelling. Grand Budapest is him creating a yarn in the style of a storyteller; French Dispatch…
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Aftersun 2022
Soren Kirkergaard wrote that 'life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards'. Aftersun is an impressionistic portrait of this truism, an intricate web of framing devices that comes across as effortless.
In fact, describing Aftersun makes it sound so much more complicated than it is. The film presents three narrative perspectives, all adopting the lens of Sophie (Frankie Corio), the daughter of Calum (Paul Mescal) (the father and daughter relationship that the film entirely revolves around).…
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The Tragedy of Macbeth 2021
As an English Literature teacher who has taught Shakespeare’s Macbeth for seven years, my perspective on adaptations will differ to most. While I understand that Joel Coen’s turn is a striking piece of cinema full of good actors saying pretty words, and certainly is cinematic (on a visual level), it is a lukewarm adaptation that is often at odds with the strength of the source material. Coen’s Macbeth feels like what people think Shakespeare is: an arch, arty thing to…
