Wes Anderson’s "Asteroid City" is being released in theaters this Friday. It’s the 11th feature film for a filmmaker who has become a distinct voice in American cinema.
When I first watched "Asteroid City" at the Cannes Film Festival last month, my response was lukewarm towards the film. However, I saw it again last Tuesday, and it clicked.
With Anderson, his films are so filled with the smallest of details in every frame that a second viewing can be beneficial in the way you can deconstruct the details.
Watching an Anderson film a second time is the least we should do to truly appreciate his work, especially if you first saw it during the chaos of a festival like Cannes. And so, this re-evaluation of "Asteroid City," after disappointment at Cannes, was a pleasurable surprise.
This is a film that seems, at first glance, to push some tendencies of the filmmaker to their very limits—in this case, the artificiality of the sets and figures, the accelerated sequence of shots and vignettes, the iconographic fetishism—until you zone out.
Re-watching the film, I was allowed to go beyond my first viewing and understand that this was a fresher and more original statement than originally perceived. In fact, "Asteroid City" is pure experimentation on the part of Anderson. It’s a statement on science and religion, life and death, that feels as obsessive and meticulous as these topics deserve.
In a way, the knowledge and perceptions that we have of what to expect from Anderson’s films can prevent us from firmly grasping this new film. I’ll have more thoughts about "Asteroid City" in the days to come.
Where does Anderson’s latest film rank in his filmography? If you ask me, it’s somewhere in the middle. A refresher ranking:
1) The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2008)
Wes Anderson decided to adapt Roald Dahl’s classic into a feature film. The decision to make it using stop-motion animation turned out to be an inspiring one. George Clooney voices the titular Fox, a character so dedicated to helping his family survive that he decides to plan a heist, robbing three of the biggest farmers around. The pièce de résistance is the apple cider farm heist, which ends the film on an exuberantly high note and features one of the best chase scenes in animation history. The soundtrack is impeccable, the screenplay is witty, and the voice acting is tremendous. Anderson has never made a better film.
2) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Anderson didn’t disappoint in his much-anticipated follow-up to “Rushmore.” This is the most emotional film of his career — an ode to New York City and, most importantly, its lead actor Gene Hackman. All of the 21st century mannerisms we’d come to know Anderson by started here. Filled with brilliant montages, eccentric characters (Ben Stiller’s adidas jumpsuits) and an amalgam of exuberance, this is where Anderson truly found his voice.
3) Rushmore (1998)
Anderson turned the bond between a rich burnout (Bill Murray) and a teenage know-it-all (Jason Schwartzman) into an usually prescient love triangle. The soundtrack cues, from The Faces’ “Ooh La La” to The Kinks’ “Nothin’ in This World Can Stop Me Worryin ‘Bout That Girl,” are sheer perfection. So is the way Anderson manages to pull an exceptional performance out of Bill Murray.
4) The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
It's not just the distinctive visual and narrative style that makes this an incredible achievement; it's also the fact that Anderson has infused this obsessive dollhouse-like world with real heart and passion for character. Ralph Fiennes’ performance — maybe the best of his career — is theatrical yet compassionate, filled with depth and persuasiveness. For all its bonkers hijinks, this is also the darkest of Anderson’s career, tackling fascism and the emergence of the Second World War.
5) Moonrise Kingdom (2011)
A summer camp movie about prepubescent rebels Set in the 1960s in a New England coastal town, this is a dreamlike take on first love and one of the most poetic movies of Anderson’s career. Shot on beautifully rendered Super 16mm, Anderson infuses his love for French cinema into both the images and soundtrack of the film. The film takes place as society is about to change with the sexual revolution. You can feel a certain freedom starting to take shape, with not just the child characters engaging in a joie-vivre approach to life but the originally frigid adults as well.
6) Isle of Dogs (2018)
"Isle of Dogs" is soaked in the beauty of Japanese culture but is also very much ingrained in "Andersonville". The pure pleasure of watching "Isle of Dogs" resides in its obsessive attention to detail, the off-centre symmetry that is now a given in Anderson's films, and the scurrying, relentless nature of Anderson-ism laid bare on a tableau of pure stop-motion artistry. What a clever idea on the part of Anderson to have the canine’s barks spoken in English and the Japanese raw and unsubtitled.
7) Asteroid City
The most experimental Anderson Two stories are told, one shot in anamorphic widescreen and Kodachrome-like colour. The second is interwoven with the first one and presented in 4:3 black and white. It’s a statement on science and religion, life and death, that feels as obsessive and meticulous as these topics deserve.
8) The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
This one deserves more love than it gets. A road trip movie about three American brothers, who have not spoken to each other in a year, boarding a train headed to India They want to become brothers again, but not without addiction and Indian cough syrup getting in the way. This is where a startling maturity starts to creep into Anderson’s oeuvre; when I interviewed him a few years ago, he told me this was his most personal movie. and it shows.
9) The Life Aquatic (2004)
Originally poorly received by critics, this was essentially the beginning of Wes Anderson’s phase as a very controlling and obsessively detailed filmmaker. Its reputation eventually took a 180 and has built up a considerable cult following over the years. In fact, the film has so many fans that even Criterion gave in and released it as part of their limited collection. There are still issues at play here; many of the jokes misfire, there is a little too much "irony" in the screenplay, and this could have benefited from a less-is-more approach.
10) The French Dispatch (2021)
There are nifty little sequences scattered throughout the chaos of "The French Dispatch," but there is also a lack of cohesive control. This time, Anderson has pushed the buttons a little too far. It’s visually stunning, the production design obsessively accomplished, and the action zips by you at such an urgent speed — his ADD here is rambunctious but sometimes too frustrating to grasp.
11) Bottle Rocket (1996)
You can sense Wes Anderson trying to find his own unique voice in "Bottle Rocket." The writing is witty but rusty. The direction is stylish but incomplete. The characters are thinly drawn. The production values that would define his oeuvre are also missing, no doubt due to budgetary constraints. Although Anderson’s off-beat tones can be felt, it doesn’t feel like a complete film. At the very least, this is an important film because it signalled the emergence of a wondrous talent to come.