Recently Watched: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I'm just going to start this post off with a warning. I am in no way a person who possess knowledge about the film making process or the art of film making, so what follows is going to be a jumbled ball of my opinions, and will probably repeat the same thing over and over! But nevertheless, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this movie.

I recently watched Wes Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel which was released earlier this year. I have heard of Wes Anderson and his reputation of course, and have seen his Fantastic Mr. Fox but other wise I was not that familiar with Anderson's movies. The trailer for this caught my eye, and I decided to give it a shot. 

The plot of this movie is a little hard to example. This movie is basically the story of Monsieur Gustave who is the manager of the Grand Budapest Hotel, and Zero who is a young lobby boy for the hotel. The two form an unlikely friendship and go on an unlikely adventure in order to secure Monsieur Gustave his priceless painting he has inherited. But the movies is so much more than that and is so quirky and beautiful cinematic wise.

 I really enjoyed this movie. If I had to describe this movie in one word, I would use the word unexpected. The characters are quirky and the action takes the movie in unexpected directions. The opening scene with the statue of the author won me over right away. I'm interested in checking out the writings that inspired this movie, which you can read more about here if you would like.

 

This movie is so beautiful. The colors are absolutely amazing! While watching this movie I was constantly in awe of how amazing it looked. The hotel is amazing, and the landscape is just as beautiful. Every scene from this movie could be printed as a still and hung on the hall, I'm not kidding. The colors in every scene coordinated perfectly, and the thought that was put into each shot was evident. I love the way the purple of their uniforms contrasts with the orange of the elevator in the picture above, as well as the combination of blue and pink in the picture below. Every scene from the movie was like that!   

I'm sure this movie has so many things going on that I don't have the vocabulary or film knowledge to describe, but those things aren't needed to enjoy this movie or appreciate its beauty. I found myself smiling at the witty dialogue and wishing I could have a shot of the hotel to hang in my house! I really recommend checking this movie out. Even if you know nothing about film or Wes Anderson, this movie is still funny and heartfelt and quite enjoyable.