The latest from Wes Anderson is advertised as “more Wes Anderson than ever”, and this direct phrase that acts as a publicity claim is not without reason. Those who love the filmmaking staff, responsible for great works such as ‘Isle of Dogs’ or ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, will see their expectations multiplied. Those who discover the seams of his cinema, or are simply trapped by boredom beyond the bombastic aesthetic, will multiply their yawns. ‘Asteroid City’, shot in Chinchón, the funniest fact about its conception, is a collection of moving postcards, based on measured tracking shots and some 360-degree turn on the camera shot, which seem to have been generated by an AI which has been asked, precisely, to generate images of Wes Anderson signed by Wes Anderson (it smells like Midjourney without wanting it, but there it is). The caricature is served, for better and for worse.
As visually attractive as textually cumbersome, the important thing in ‘Asteroid City’ is the visual packaging and the exultant choral cast, the rest is the least of it. If you’re a fan of Anderson, you can easily enter the party and dance, even if the atmosphere is a mess, because the main thing is to reinforce your identity as a movie fan as a spectator. You have to give Anderson credit for his ability to maintain his authorship in the Hollywood industry, where any sign of personality is attenuated or outright removed. Maintaining authorial signs within the framework of American commercial cinema is a feat. In his new work, presented in Cannes, there is a good display of tics to the delight of the devoted audience, with a melancholic sense of humor not suitable for all audiences.
The excuse that allows the formal deployment made in Anderson is a small town, located in the desert of the country of stars and stripes, where a contest is held for gifted young people whose brains light up when they observe astronomical phenomena. Watch out for the large cast of stars that populates this fictional place where unexpected events break out: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Margot Robbie, Hope Davis, Matt Dillon, Steve Carell, Willem Dafoe…
Watching ‘Asteroid City’ it is inevitable not to remember the figure of the ineffable Jacques Tati and the beginnings of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The look of the film refers to American prints from the 50s, a time when the story takes place in two sharp theatrical shots that generate an attractive unreal atmosphere with the smell of old-fashioned celluloid. Anderson does not hide the models or the camp touch in the scenery, a conscious decision that is part of the charm of the story (by the way, no sign of Chinchón, except for some stolen from Ton Hanks that swarms the network). The feeling on leaving the dark room after the projection, for those who devour all kinds of images, whether moving or in two dimensions, is that we have swallowed a boring comic by Daniel Clowes -which does not exist on paper-, with many familiar faces of the seventh art. There’s a spoiler: the alien scene is ridiculous in its conception, it’s out of tune, and, depending on how he’s received on screen, Anderson’s fan card gains or loses points. As beautiful as it is devoid of sincere emotions, unlike Anderson’s other titles, it will be especially liked by those who enjoy its undoubted talent without being visually stuffy.
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