The speed of Anderson

 

A new Wes Anderson film is coming out, which means it's time for all the usual bullshit about his films - the painfully predictable dismissal of his style; the claims he is just making the same film over and over again; the complaints about all that crippling tweeness.

There is some truth in all that bile - his films really are twee as fuck - but it's even worse this time, with some absolute smooth brains creating AI nonsense that mash up the pastels and symmetric stillness of his films with other blockbusters.

All of these are ugly as fuck, and just so painfully obvious that you feel a little embarrassed for them. And they miss one of the things I really, really like about Wes Anderson's films, and that's how fucking fast they are.

His movies are full of long, drawn-out fourth-wall breaking gazes into the abyss of the human condition, but they still move, man. They are saturated with so much plot that it requires innovate narrators to keep things going, and if you don't pay attention, you'll soon be left behind.

They pump event after event into the mix, all  elivered at a rapid pace. When Sam sees Suzy in Moonrise Kingdom, he doesn't mess about, he gets right to the crux of the matter -'what kind of bird is she?

And when there is action, it is sudden and brutal and exhilarating as fuck. The Grand Budapest Hotel is full of it, with mad leaps across rooftops and a breathtakingly fast ski-chase. The big emotional zenith of the Royal Tenanbaums comes with the advent of Owen Wilson fuckin' gunning it down the road in his muscle car.  Everyone in Fantastic Mr Fox and Isle of Dogs are fucking fanging it across the screen in staccato movements;  the Whitman brothers are always be racing to catch their train in the Darjeeling Limited; and Bill Murray evens jogs for a step or two in The Life Aquatic, and he barely moves for anybody.

Fuck that AI stillness, and all that fake longing down the fake lens. I'm off to Asteroid city as soon as I'm able, because even if they're all just sitting around a hole in the ground, life is still speeding by them.