Anderson back in Cannes with his film ‘The French Dispatch’
Wes Anderson’s new film ‘The French Dispatch,’ which premiered on Monday at Cannes, takes his style to even more surreal limits
Self-obsessed guys with daddy issues, maps, models and handwriten leters, probably some 1960s rock and definitely Bill Murray deadpanning — you know immediately whose universe you’re in. “Wes Anderson is here tonight... He arrived on a bicycle made of antique tuba parts,” joked Amy Poehler, hosting the Golden Globes a few years back. And everyone knew what she meant, because no one in film history has been so unblinkingly wedded to a specific off-beat vibe — from early successes like “The Royal Tenenbaums” through hits like “Fantastic Mr Fox” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” — as the Texas-born director.
Anderson’s new film “The French Dispatch”, which premiered on Monday at Cannes, takes his style to even more surreal limits, crammed with ornate and madcap imagery in an incredibly elaborate ode to expat journalists and France. “Wes is only geting more Wes-like. (His first films) ‘Botle Rocket’ and ‘Rushmore’ are practically naturalistic compared to where he’s at now. Where will it end?” said Sophie Monks Kaufman, who wrote a book about him, “Close Ups: Wes Anderson”.
It has been a long wait for “The French Dispatch,” which was due to open at last year’s Cannes festival before it was cancelled by the pandemic. But the early reviews were gushing on Monday, with The Telegraph calling it his best film ever and “relentlessly wonderful”, though Indiewire’s Eric Kohn warned it “may divide people as it is, in blunt terms, very Wes Anderson.” That singular approach has earned Anderson total creative control and an ever-growing menagerie of megastars eager to join his famously convivial sets. Timothee Chalamet and Benicio del Toro are the latest additions, and joined him on the Cannes red carpet along with Anderson regulars Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton and Adrien Brody.
“The French Dispatch” shows Anderson heading away from some of the more serious issues that cut through his early films. He has cited his parents’ divorce when he was eight as the defining moment of his childhood, and broken families have been a recurrent theme in his work. He has returned oten to his childhood: filming in his own high school in Houston for “Rushmore”, paying homage to youthful infatuations with explorer Jacques Cousteau (“The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”) and Roald Dahl (“Fantastic Mr Fox”).
“He seems particularly nostalgic about the age of 12,” writes Kaufman. “Wes can remember what it was like to be at that age and overwhelmed by a romantic crush, or when a book could become your whole world.” Many find it all too twee. The winking irony and taste for analogue make him practically the definition of modern hipsterism: “Your barista’s favourite director,” as one Youtube parody put it. The style has leaked all over contemporary culture, from home decor to Gucci ads to countless films such as “Paddington” and “Lady Bird”. It has spawned a hit Instagram account of real-life things that ought to be in his films, “Accidentally Wes Anderson”, the director’s personal favourite being a Croatian pancake stand. This points to the fact that Anderson is not a cult figure, Kaufman said.