Words by Kasey Blondell
At the Cannes Film Festival this year, watching Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City in a sleep haze ended up being a wild ride.
Asteroid City is Wes Anderson’s most experimental film yet. Bolstered by a fourth-wall-breaking mysterious television host (Bryan Cranston), it’s apparent that Wes Anderson is tackling complicated concepts, some existential questions, and having a blast doing it.
The film is presented as a story, within a story, within a story, weaving between a titular play, ‘Asteroid City’ and the story behind the play’s creation. In true Wes Anderson fashion, he interpolates other fascinating elements, such as three death-obsessed adorable little girls, and artists unable to identify the meaning behind their art: perhaps a resemblance of the average viewer’s attempt to dissect Anderson’s work?
When war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) falls for actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), it’s soon apparent that their relationship is destined to be marked by both characters’ melancholia. Augie grieves his dead wife and, behind the ridiculousness of him carrying her ashes in a tupperware box, his sadness should be believed.
At one point, Schwartzman’s character goes to speak with the play’s director, played by Adrian Brody. He says, “I still don’t understand the play”, and the director responds, in the most poignant (or perhaps frustrating) fashion possible, “Well, you don’t have to. Just keep telling the story”,
Anderson’s first feature-length foray into science-fiction, the film combines comedy and drama, and holds real preoccupation with storytelling at its heart. The visual style is intriguing: switching between black-and-white and blinding bright colours, with the latter used only in Asteroid City-set scenes. For these scenes, you might wish you were wearing sunglasses.
Of course, in typical Wes Anderson fashion, everything is symmetrical, but the vision he provides is also, as always, unique: we see through binoculars, long shots, and even experience a period of stop-motion. An alien poses for the camera. It’s weird. It’s funny. Yet, there is a futility and sadness behind the comedy.
The film proves those AI interpretations of Wes Anderson’s work are all wrong. Stylistic features are a hallmark of Anderson’s work, but his style is constantly evolving. When you look beyond the surface, there is always something more complex buried within an already complex narrative.
Fundamentally, Asteroid City is a film about the human desire to create. It is a story about telling a story, about grief and artistic ennui. Sure, it may be confusing, experimental, and hard to read, but Wes Anderson’s films are far from being all style and no substance. In my opinion, Asteroid City is a confirmation of that.
Asteroid City releases in cinemas 23rd June.