THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

OUT 22 FEBRUARY / CERT 15 / 100 MINS TBC

The Grand Budapest Hotel may be the most Wes Andersonian Wes Anderson film ever made, with enough harpsichord music and symmetrical framing to make a film studies student go dizzy. But dismiss it as a candy-coloured confection at your peril. Seven years after its release, this reissue presents a strong case that it’s the filmmaker’s best work: sharply funny and stunningly crafted at every meticulous turn. But it’s the surprising undercurrent of melancholy which really cements its classic status, as Monsieur Gustave — gloriously played by a dandyish Ralph Fiennes — grapples with a violent upheaval of the status quo, the last stalwart of the old world. His poetic musing that there are “still faint glimmers of civilisation left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity” now takes on a greater resonance, given everything that’s been going on with humanity lately.