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Harvey Keitel

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Well That Was Fast!

by Peter Foy

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While Wes Anderson has always been a fairly prolific filmmaker (with the average gap for his film releases being three years), it’s still a bit of a jolt that he was able to put out his latest film so rapidly. It hasn’t even been a full two years yet since the release of 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom, a meticulously detailed movie that seemingly was enhanced by Anderson’s previous foray into animation, yet now he’s a released a follow up film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, that’s ornate and vivid in a very similar sense. It’s certainly impressive that Wes Anderson is able to release such films at an alarmingly fast rate and still be considered an “artist”, especially as The Grand Budapest Hotel might rank as his best made film to date in terms of spectacle and craft, even if other areas of it suggest a delivery that was a mite bit rushed.

Focusing on the fictional country of the Republic of Zebrowka (but filmed entirely in Germany), the film is told through a rather uncommon form of layered narration. Starting out with a character only known as The Author (Tom Wilkinson) who in the 1980s is recounting his travels to the fabled Grand Budapest Hotel back in the 1960s, we witness his younger self (now played by Jude Law) examine this once glamorous, now disheveled resort. Eventually however, he comes to meet the hotel’s enigmatic owner, Zero Moustafa, a man who has a long history with the hotel, particularly during the years before Zebrowka dissolved. Moustafa comes off as a kindly old fellow to the author, and invites him to dinner with him so that he may elaborate on his history to him. At this point, Moustafa becomes the film’s narrator, and the film’s action switches to 1932, when we witness the young Zero (now played by Tony Revolori) become a bell-hop for the hotel, under the tutelage of M. Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel’s flamboyant concierge. In a nut shell, a bizarre occurrence happens and we see the two go on a series of mishaps and adventures.

While Wes Anderson had said in press interviews for Moonrise Kingdom that his next film was going to be a “European” movie, I don’t think any of us could of predicted what he exactly meant by that. Said to be inspired by the writings of Austrian novelist/playwring Stefan Zweig, his imagined country of Zebrowka appears to be an amalgamation of several nations in eastern Europe (i.e. Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia), populated by a wide range of people from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, yet they all speak in English, and in either American or British accents no less. As with most of Wes Anderson’s films it’s hard to tell whether the world he’s constructed id trying to make some sort of abstract social critique, or rather that this is just the way he’d like the world to look, but it hardly matters. It’s easy to make a case that Anderson is a director that values style over substance, but he’s also a director who makes his style the substance. His films are the work of an observer, who’s seeks out a by-gone era, yet infuses it with his sense for modernity and playfulness. He’s littered all of his films with this retro Euro-chic vibe, so what better than to actually make a film set in…Europe!

The Grand Budapest Hotel

For the most part, The Grand Budapest Hotel’s setting does influence some rather brilliant film making from Anderson. The film is certainly an homage to early silent cinema, but it’s presented in a way that only Anderson could do, as it’s filled with his trademark crane shots, and exaggerated picture-esque models. Also, ever since he released his sole animated film The Fantastic Mr. Fox (still one of my top 3 favorites of his) I’ve wanted to see Anderson do more of an adventure film, and I can gladly say that Grand Budapest Hotel is the pulpiest film he’s done to date (complete with a bit part from Harvey Keitel). A sped-up ski-chase scene, a fanciful jail break-out scene, and even a little bit of prison violence can be found in the movie, and they complement Anderson’s creation rather than feel out of place in it.

As blatantly well-crafted The Grand Budapest Hotel is, that quality still isn’t the first thing that stood out out for me about the film. For one, the first thing I couldn’t help but notice was that Anderson had assembled a frankly huge cast for Grand Budapest Hotel. Casting both a healthy dose of his regulars (Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman) as well as a slew of new additions to his family (William DaFoe, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, etc.), I couldn’t help but be a little cautious that perhaps the film would cover too much story for a movie that was only 99 minutes long. Well, frankly I feel my pre-conceived misgivings were fairly accurate, as most of these actors (outside of Fiennes and Revolori’s two leads) have very limited screen-time, with scarce development, and even a few scenes that aren’t very necessary at all. For another film maker, this condition could of meant the film’s undoing, but for Wes Anderson it hardly comes off as a shock. Throughout Wes Anderson’s career, it’s become more and more observable that his actors are just as much set props for his aesthetic than any inanimate object. This isn’t to say that his films reek of bad acting, but more than any other director working today Anderson utilizes the ideology of letting his style rule the project, and letting his performers primarily act as an adhesive. So yes Grand Budapest Hotel does feel sloppy due to it’s large cast, but it’s only a slight nag when you consider the rest of the director’s oeuvre.

The film does fall a bit short in a rather crucial area, though, and by that I mean heart. Make no mistake, Anderson certainly intends for there to be a tragic undercurrent to his high-spirited adventure film, as the film has character deaths, talk of war, and prevailing sense of yearning for the way things used to be before modernization. Still, this is often off-set by the film’s rambunctious nature, and glib dialogue, which isn’t even the sharpest that Anderson has written. The emotional beats just don’t ring as sincere as I hoped for, and that remains by biggest disappointment with Anderson’s work. Also, the aforementioned narrative set-up feels a bit irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and also doesn’t make much sense as F. Murray Abraham seems too old to play the older version of the teenage Zero, as it’s only been 30 years since the events of the main action in the film. I feel that if Anderson had spent more time on the script (namely expanding it), then this film could truly have been his magnum opus.

In the end, Grand Budapest Hotel is a flawed yet remarkable offering from Wes Anderson, and I’m sure I’ll be having plenty of friendly discussions/debates about it with the Brooklyn population over the next few months. It’s a very typically fun, elaborate, and idiosyncratic film for Wes Anderson’s filmography, and also one that shows that he has the potential to be a good pulp storyteller also. Hell, maybe we’re just a few movies away from seeing him do a Tarantino-esque shlock-fest…think about it!

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Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES Tagged With: Europe, Grand Budapest Hotel, Harvey Keitel, Period Setting, Ralph Fiennes, Wes Anderson

Netflix’d: Bad Lieutenant

by Peter Foy

Just when I thought that I might be a long while before I returned to my Netflix’d column (I thought about reviewing the second season of House of Cards, but decided that it would more-or-less be a repeat of my season 1 review), it seems the streaming gods decided to present to me a challenge when they placed Abel Ferrara’s original Bad Lieutenant on the Netflix queue. A challenge I accepted!

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Title:  Bad Lieutenant

Director: Abel Ferrara

Writer: Abel Ferrara, Zoe Lund, Paul Calderon

Year: 1992

Running Time: 96 minutes

Starring: Harvey Keitel

Genre: Cop drama

Similar To: American Psycho, Dirty Harry, Killer Joe

As a man who prides himself on making cinema recommendations to people, I also have to keep in mind that there are essentially two different kinds of films that I recommend: Films that are great, and film’s that should be seen for other factors. I feel that Bad Lieutenant fits into the latter category, as it is a flawed film that’s also really ugly and forced. Still, it remains an anomaly to this day for a whole host of factors, and its pedigree has certainly risen since the 2009 release of Werner Herzog’s slight remake, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Why is this black sheep of a dirty-cop movie so special? Well, we can start with looking at the plot.

The film stars Harvey Keitel as an unnamed NYPD police lieutenant, and maybe that’s for the better. Keitel’s character is simply abhorrent in a way that makes a Clockwork Orange’s Alex look like Tiny Tim. A heroin using, whoring, and potentially insane man, there really isn’t a redeemable thing about the man…but apparently he does believe in god. This spiritual affliction starts to have an uncanny effect on our bad lieutenant when he takes on a case involving a raped nun, that sends him on some strange sort of redemption spiel.

Director-writer Abel Ferrara has had a particularly strange career, starting out directing pornographic films and grindhouse features soon after he graduated from college. He garnered more of a cult following in the 80s though, when he directed Ms. 45, a schlocky revenge film that some critics called “feminist”, and would actually go on to work with Michael Mann and direct two episodes of Miami Vice. His popularity possibly peaked in 1990 when his directorial effort  King of New York came out, a social-conscious shoot em’ up starring Christopher Walken, that actually lent the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G. his alias of Frank White. Still, after this success Ferrara chose not to pursue a more mainstream path, and instead put out an NC-17 rated film with potentially zero wide-spread appeal. So…can’t call him a sell-out right?

With a budget that was only $1 million, Bad Lieutenant avoids having elaborate set pieces, and almost entirely puts its weight on Harvey Keitel. It’s a brave role for Keitel to have taken the same year that he appeared in Reservoir Dogs and Sister Act, as not only do we see this venerable actor playing an exaggerated low-life, but he actually did full-frontal nudity for the first time here (yes his penis is small and grotesque-looking, and I’m grateful memes didn’t exist when this film came out). Yet once your mind gets off of such things, one can make a case that Keitel’s performance isn’t very good. He’s essentially a cartoon, and his mannerisms get to a point of being repetitive, yet still he entices us. Despite being such a lurid film, Bad Lieutenant manages to come across as humorous too, perhaps suggesting that the only sane reaction to seeing such a film is to laugh. Is it because we know who this actor is and just have never seen him play such a character before, or is it because of Abel Ferrara’s strange direction, and even stranger screenplay? Maybe it’s all of the above?

One intriguing factor is that this would be an entirely different film if now for the religious symbolism. The film’s references to religion and Christian re-birth are about as subtle as a jackhammer to the face (Ferrara isn’t exactly Martin Scorsese), but the Catholic guilt in the film definitely gives the film an oddity factor. One particular scene that involves Keitel raving and ranting to an image (hallucination?) of Jesus Christ probably remains the most memorable mark of Abel Ferrara’s film making career and it isn’t necessarily well done. Keitel’s acting is over-the-top, and the judeo-christian imagery of it all just feels like Ferrara is taking the easy way out for telling a story about redemption. Still, it’s an endlessly watchable scene, that acts as something of a surreal and exaggerated reminder of what people have come to expect from these gritty, cop-based films.

It’s rather difficult to tell whether Bad Lieutenant is an art house film that thinks it’s a exploitation piece or rather the other way around, but it remains a curio of the American 90s indie-boom, and it hasn’t been affected by age. It still gives off the same reactions of disgust, puzzlement, intrigue, and hilarity that it did when it was released 22 years ago, and it’s likely to go down as Abel Ferrara’s most remembered film. I can’t promise that you’ll like it, but I can promise you that it must be seen to be believed.

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Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES Tagged With: 90s indie cinema, Abel Ferrara, Bad Lieutenant, Explotation, Harvey Keitel

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