After a narrative tribute to journalism withThe French DispatchWes Anderson attacks the actor's myth in his new feature film presented in competition in Cannes.Asteroid Cityis a choral film at the XXL casting. The action takes place at the heart of the 1950s in the desert of Monument Valley, where characters with a well tempered character will meet.
Wes Anderson digs the actor's figure
Wes Anderson is no longer presented, his baffled universes where pastel colours flood the screen, especially since his last films. Once it is not customary, the director resumes his recipe of narratives in patchwork, where dialogues give a nice part to exchanges in small committees. The film starts with a silent family father, who fails toAsteroid Citywith her three children in low age following a car breakdown.
After a telephone exchange with his father-in-law, played by an intractable Tom Hanks, Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) finally announced to the marmaille that their mother had died. Only flat, he's known the news for a week. This will be followed by a series of incisive paintings with, like the only leading thread, this desert and this curious meteor religiously exposed in the midst of the gigantic crater guarded by the army. A young team of prodigy scientists, a movie star and a riddle of characters meet here with a unique typical American dinner and a rudimentary motel as a place to exchange.
UnlikeThe Grand Budapest HotelorDog Islandwho, in their own way, had opted for a narrative between initiatory travel and road movie,Asteroid Citychooses the same unit of place: this muddy hole at the bottom of the Great West. In spite of this, the film shows a constant movement with this series of dialogues at a steady pace and with scenes that keep going. With its structure in three acts and a deluged epilogue,Asteroid CityIt was announced from the outset as a play by Bryan Cranston as a narrator.
Far from being static,Asteroid CityMultiplies the sharp camera movements specific to the style of the Texas director in order to move from one character to another. With its composition always indicative of a quasi obsessive symmetry and a careful grammar of the composition, the theatrical frame of the film fits perfectly with Wes Anderson. Thestop motion- Another signature from the director- made a fly again. The same applies to the choice of a photograph where the blue and ochre tones are overexposed, as a beautified world which one would look through the polarized sunglasses of the gonzo-journalist Raoul Duke ofLas Vegas Parano.
« You can't wake up if you don't sleep. »
Special mention to Scarlett Johansson, hypnotic in the role of Midge Campbell, amid the big screen reminding Marilyn Monroe, the blonde hair less. The actress will give Jason Schwartzman the replica by offering us the most beautiful scenes of the film. From one micro-bungalow to another, the actress will be drawn the portrait by this father photographer broken by life, not without evoking the mythical encounter ofParis Texasby his cold beauty. Wes Anderson summons many (too?) references from the cinema to feed his story. Lunar dialogues, third wall, black and white passages where actors discuss their respective roles, whose purpose they struggle to understand,Asteroid Cityplays on two tables, even sometimes robbing his spectator.
With his huge casting of more than twenty legendary actors, none of them really succeeds in imposing for a narrative resolutely thought like a choir. Back from the medal, it is sometimes desired that some scenes be prolonged rather than choosing the TGV format of the narrative. Every time the rhythm increases in scale, we move to another duo without succeeding in making us reach the bar of sincere emotion.
Wes Anderson makes Wes Anderson
Actors question the set. «I don't understand the play.» Jason Schwartzman confides in Edward Norton. «Anyway, keep telling it.» Replies his partner. Ode to the pleasure of playing for the actor against the background of vanity, the last third chooses a formula perhaps a little too catapulted to convince. With a fall where not all axes seem complete, did Wes Anderson let himself be carried away by the gigantism of a casting where newcomers come to join the director's faithful?
Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Adrien Brody, Matt Dillon, Jeff Goldblum, Jeffrey Wright and many other movie stars will each have their own stage, sometimes only a few minutes. While the action theatre at Monument Valley is better understood, this avalanche of great names stifles narrative a little. The existential void of his characters crosses the entire film. Shot during the VOCID, the pandemic probably contributed to Anderson's chosen theme, while the whole world was for the first time separated and emptied of its meaning.
The master visually offers us one of his most controlled films, as a tribute to cinema. HoweverAsteroid Cityleaves the feeling of excessive complexity that will cause the spectator to become tired. WhileAIs begin to imitate Wes Andersonby apeting the fantasy work of the artist, the Texas director seduces but perhaps friezes his own cartoon at times by crushing us with dialogues and actors, however beautiful they may be. While it may not always be relevant to blame a director for doing what gives him his signature, Wes Anderson will probably have to think about reinvigorating his creativity so as not to give the feeling of indigestion or superficiality like Tim Burton and others before him.
At the top of his art,#WesAndersonbroadens its (magnificent) frame to evoke the uncertainty of creation in a choral narrative as funny as melancholic where characters, whose desire to exist is palpable despite the existential void of their lives (the crater), meet in meta scenes that do not turn empty. You can't wake up if you don't sleep!
[...] KillerS7ven's criticism [...]
I saw it yesterday, maybe a little too late for a weekend, but I sometimes admit that I have completely dropped between the VO and its very fast flow, the visual trickle of the scenes and the different levels of the film... Passionating without a doubt, but I will need a second view ^^
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