Everyone remembers their first Wes Anderson film. His movies are full of quirk, and filled to the brim with a style that is completely him. They’re easy to fall in love with, and do exactly what, art is supposed to do, “– evoke a curiosity about ourselves, and the lives of others.”
I had been dancing around, or rather dodging, his films for a while; I thought that I was too cool for the silly CGI shark and sea horse in Life Aquatic, the petty criminals in Bottle Rocket, and Max, the snarky teenager with a Mrs. Robinson complex in Rushmore. However, once I accepted that ignoring him was only going to slow my falling for his films, there was no going back.
The first of his films that truly connected with me was the Royal Tenenbaums. It is about a family of genius’ lost in the world of adulthood- one that I was, and still am, terrified to begin. They return to the home they grew up in, brought together by the most unlikely of sources- their father, Royal, who had helped to tear them apart.
Years after my first Wes Anderson film, I like to think of myself as a seasoned fan. After all, I have decided to create an entire blog dedicated to exploring his techniques, films, characters, and everything in between. When I started searching for other’s reviews of him to get an idea of how to begin, I was taken aback. For every one person who had fallen for his outlandish, but completely loveable style, as I had, there were ten criticizers who described his films as unsophisticated, oppressive, and valuing style over substance.
Reviewers of Anderson’s films believe that his style appealed to a certain type of person- the typical of such being white, middle class, artistically-contained, and confused in what direction their life should take. They believe that, “he is fascinated with arrested spiritual and emotional development, and the pain and humor accompanying it, but he is not interested in the interior ideas behind it.” This, they believe, creates a Peter Pan effect, where his movies are stuck, “in a state of perpetual pubescence.” They confuse his style with that of a child’s play. “He does this on two levels: Within the story itself (like children, his characters yearn for greater significance in the world), and, mirroring this, within the film’s aesthetic (a kindergarten-esque extremely literal style contrary to grown-up ideas of sophistication).”
While I do agree that his films are reminiscent of childhood, a time where everything possesses mystery and grand importance, I do not believe that that makes them oversimplified. His characters usually have or are undergoing great change and emotional drama, and, to cope, they hide their emotions within themselves. Casual observers can mistake their emotionally-muted facades for artless, uncomplicated mistakes-the exact opposite of the carefully-crafted truth.
Another critique of Wes Anderson is that he uses other races as “caricatures”or “novelties” to make his world seem more exotic. His characters may be privileged, and sometimes presumptuous, but that doesn’t make them outwardly racist. Can you title them as being arrogant just because they are completely immersed in their own world?
Like them, I am lucky to be socially advantaged. This summer I went to an anti-oppression training which enlightened me about my place in the world. I had never dwelled on what privileges I had, but instead had taken them for granted. After the training I felt lucky, and a bit guilty, that I felt safe, educated, economically stable, and was white, when so many people in our country suffer from predjudice and inequality every day.
However, I do not believe that Wes Anderson is exaggerating class or racial issues by the characters in his films. His main theme is, “the heroic rising of the weird individuals creative will under the oppressive weight of tradition and history. Break free and do your own thing.” If anything, he is fighting against oppression. Beyond that though, you shouldn’t expect him or his films to be a beacon for the socially disadvantaged, or judge him when they aren’t. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and you shouldn’t expect him to.
Just as his characters are intricate and thought out, so to are his directing and filming techniques. His easy-to-identify aethstetic has made him one of the most recognizable directors of our time. I absolutely love his preferred gang of actors that have become as familiar as friends to me, his filming style that evokes elements of childhood, and his deadpan, witty scripts. You can tell that he puts his whole soul into his movies, and it pays off.
But to say that he develops his filming techniques at the expense of his characters is just not the case. They are not too curious to the point of seeming undemensional or unrealistic. His backgrounds of pastels, symmetric shots, slow-motion sequences, light 60s rock, and lengthy gradual-panning scenes that remind one of stage plays emphasizes, not deters, from his storyline.
I can understand that maybe, like all movies can, his films just don’t jibe with your tastes; but it’s one thing to dislike a director’s style, but quite another to feel so strongly about it as to write scathing reviews that rip apart his techniques and plots. “When they say a movie is ‘too smart for its own good,’ as if we’re trying to show how great and cool we are… well, that’s just not the case.”
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