• An absolutely loaded mise-en-scene. Anderson, the reigning master of mise-en-scene, décor and set design has plenty of wall-art still frame selections here to choose from
  • The narrative and sprawling ensemble are equally dense– I think, in a 101 minute movie—we have as many as 30 speaking characters and 4 different love interests
  • I couldn’t find a pic on the internet but my visual highlight might be the gorgeous dome/hut built out of colorful recycled sake bottles- it almost looks like the Christmas lights sequence at the liquor store in Birdman
  • I’m always going to admire artistically ambitious auteur-driven cinema and favor that over even most archiveable films but this is certainly “minor” wes anderson
  • I have it as Anderson’s 7th best right now after first blush (which is no insult)
  • I certainly admire the world-building and there are segments (some of the silhouette work, that colorful dome made out of recycled sake bottles) that are worthy of very high praise when it comes to cinematic visual style… but i also think there’s something inherently lacking in wes’ choice to go with stop-motion characters– i think he can flourish just as well in live action when it comes to world building and decor (when people work with “miniatures” they typically make them huge to show details so by that theory a large life-action film should/could have more detail than the little world) however, i don’t think Wes can simulate the deadpan reactions and richness of the human face in a puppet dog or fox… there’s just much more to the stare of Murray in Rushmore, Fiennes in GBH or that mirror scene in Royal with Luke Wilson that you just can’t achieve with a dog with tears in his eyes…
  • The music is as inspired as anything from Wes—first you have the drum score from Alexandre Desplat, the Kurosawa films (seven samurai and drunken angels), the gorgeous “I Won’t Hurt You” folk song by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (which accompanies the silhouette set work) and the “Midnight Sleighride” song-
  • Repetition in the dialogue like much of Wes’ work- the Goldblum dog saying “rumor” and “I bite”
  • Features an in-film play like most of Wes work
  • Like most of his work we have an orphan, and the film centers around a pack, solidarity, family
  • No slow motion again
  • His chapter breaks now have parenthesis and parenthesis within parenthesis—we’re getting, perhaps, overly cute here with the “flashback over” stuff and level of detail
  • The world building here is certainly the same trajectory as Fellini how each successive film had less and less to do with realism—this one is out there—but much of animation is- Miyazaki is out there
  • The pack mentality and ground gang is from Kurosawa, but we have the trash world that is at least a little related to Wall-E
  • Close-up work framing devices
  • Even if it doesn’t hit on every note you are in a world- and it’s a good world to be lost in- expressionistic
  • I like the overhead shots of the Sushi being prepared and the surgery being performed. Wes clearly admires the sequencing, perfectionism and craftsmanship
  • The music with gorgeous silhouette work is staying with me days and now weeks after seeing
  • Wes is clearly challenging himself—there’s the political allegory that’s very strong and then we have detail within detail on the set—like with the Gerwig foreign exchange student and her freckles—he’s making it hard on himself
  • Recommend /HR border after two theater visits