The Grand Budapest Hotel premiered at the Berlin film festival this month. The movie has been called “vibrant and imaginative”, “nimblefooted” by critics, while the director is said to have “become sour in a world of his own creation”, for the sceptic ones. His last movie is a medium where he does a compelling exploration of storytelling. The press officially credits him as having been inspired by the work of Viennese writer Stefan Zweig.

Why a Wes?

He loves books and in them he finds inspiration.

He’s a bibliophile and his love expresses itself mildly, at first, with Bottle Rocket. Stefan Zweig,  a Viennese writer, is one those that most of us haven’t even heard of. It’s in works like his that Anderson finds his inspiration now. Zweig charts every fluctuation of inner turmoil, show a propulsive force of the narrative and always adds an ingenious twist in his fiction.

A style signature are the slow motion endings, where emotions soar while the music plays.

Tripadvisor does not list The Grand Hotel Budapest.

The pastel colored establishment is situated somewhere in the 1930s’ Mitteleuropa and it’s peopled by eccentrics and lunatics. The movie set is a closed-down department store in Germany’s most eastern town, at the border of Poland, but in the fictional republic of Zubrowka.

photo highsnobiety.com

A Wes theory: “If a film takes such a big chunk of life, the process should be enjoyable”

Both the cast and crew lived together, for the duration of the filming, in a small hotel in Gorlitz, Germany. That’s why shooting with Wes sounds like summer camp.

When nothing gets you going more than the promise of an impressive cast.

Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Tom Wilkinson.

photo totalfilm.com

Tilda- a magnum of the best champagne!

Tilda Swinton is known for her age defying looks. Wes Anderson always demanded of his very famous Hollywood stars to transform into characters out of their comfort zone. Tilda left her usual androgynous appearance to play the octogenarian blonde widow Madam D, who has been wooed by Ralph Fiennes as the famous concierge Gustave H. Her character’s steamer trunk and luggage are designed by Prada and already on display, in Berlin.

“I’ve done a bunch of movies. And it’s a  luxury to me that they’re all whatever I’ve wanted them to be.“

W. A

My reality is blurred by his vision when I watch a Wes Anderson movie. It almost has the effect of a dream wrapped in a mystery. Each of his frames is packed with props and enchant with a rich color palette, a balanced symmetry and unusually absorbing richness. This 45 year old film director, a Star Wars passionate who used to fantasize about eloping with a girl in his class, mystifies me with his characters that seem to be in detail-perfect dioramas, in a clockwork plot.

photo geektyrant.com

by Silva Helena Schmidt

Silva Helena Schmidt is a lively spirited young actress, currently working as a voice-over for a media channel. Devouring, and likewise devoured by, cinematography, soundtrack curator and a storyteller.