Berlinale 2014: Grand Budapest Hotel is a Deeply Thoughtful Caper

There's really nothing like a Wes Anderson film. Nothing can compare, from the way he shoots and lights his scenes, to the decadent sets and locations he builds/chooses, to the actors he casts and performances they give. His latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which just premiered at the 2014 Berlinale Film Festival, is strangely not at all what one might be expecting from the trailer, but is nonetheless another good Wes Anderson movie. It has all of his trademarks, but it also has a distinct depth to its complex story, with many layers, that makes it more thoughtful than his most recent work. But above all, it's mostly a fun caper.
Within minutes of starting, The Grand Budapest Hotel storyline jumps back in time multiple times, moving from 1985 to the 1960s to 1933, where it settles on a story involving the concierge M. Gustave, played by Ralph Fiennes, and his lobby boy Zero, played by newcomer Tony Revolori. The reason it jumps back is to explain, almost as if looking back at the obituary of the hotel and its life, one of the prominent stories in the hotel's history intimately involving its staff. From there we follow a complex plot with a diverse cast of characters, from Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) and her nuts family, to the lawyer Kovacs (Jeff Goldblum), to Inspector Henckels (Edward Norton), to the lovely baker Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), and many others.
Peeling back the layers of this film is tough to do on a first viewing. There's so much to follow, so much to get caught up in, and so much to enjoy following all of these people on a rather dark caper, that Anderson's bigger ideas might just fly by. It took me a second viewing to start to understand that this is a very personal, very intimate film from Wes Anderson, perhaps even going so far as to put some of himself into Fiennes' character. It's perhaps a grand metaphor for the fimmaking process, or at least a look at how time can affect and change the success and failure of one specific hotel. It really is a look back at the moments that make a person, or a building, and what defines it's identity and how little disruptions can cause such big problems.

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