The French Dispatch
The staff of an American magazine based in France puts out its last issue, with stories featuring an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.
- Released: 2021-10-21
- Runtime: 108 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Stars: Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson, Timothée Chalamet, Léa Seydoux, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, Steve Park, Liev Schreiber, Elisabeth Moss, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Lois Smith, Saoirse Ronan, Christoph Waltz, Cécile de France, Guillaume Gallienne, Jason Schwartzman, Tony Revolori, Rupert Friend, Henry Winkler, Bob Balaban, Hippolyte Girardot, Anjelica Huston, Denis Ménochet, Alex Lawther, Vincent Lacoste, Benjamin Lavernhe, Vincent Macaigne, Félix Moati, Wallace Wolodarsky, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, Stéphane Bak, Anjelica Bette Fellini, Lily Taïeb, Mohamed Belhadjine, Nicolas Avinée, Winsen Ait Hellal, Toheeb Jimoh, Larry Pine, Tom Hudson, Jarvis Cocker, Bruno Delbonnel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Damien Bonnard, Morgane Polanski, Antonia Desplat, Sam Haygarth, Pablo Pauly
- Director: Wes Anderson
Comments
- Heepoppononymous - 27 December 2022
Quirky, surrealistic, and so very Wes Anderson
If there was a way to weaponize minutiae this would be it.
Wes Anderson is truly a perfect director- his shots are always dynamic, clean, and dollhouse-esque, his writing is imaginative and fresh despite being grounded somewhere to the left of reality, and his transitions between scenes are sce-mless (say it out loud, it's a good pun, I promise). His dialogue is expressive, varied (the use of stacking subtitles, the switch between French and English in a single breath, the subtle contrast between flowery monologues and blunt statements fleshing out each of a wide cast of characters-). He has a distinct aesthetic and flavor, like the kind of candies old people pull out of their pockets that you can never find anywhere else. The flavor may not be quite to your tastes, but the wrappers are charming and you can appreciate the artisanry of it. And Wes Anderson is an artisan- of strange, oddly-melancholic pastel stage-plays. There's a nuance to it, an expectation and familiarity, but also a little bit of a surprise each time- a wonder of how things will play out this time, how this old-timey looking candy will taste. Yes, the analogy is for those strawberry hard candies. You know the ones.
Getting into the nitty gritty- this particular piece is wonderfully done, a solid beginning, second beginning in the not-now, a nebulous several somewheres in the middle, a few ends and then an actual end in the now with a cast of characters perfectly cast, stories in stories in a larger story- making for a very good story. There's a lot going on, a lot sometimes not going on, but hey that's life, and that's also to be expected when so much of this movie is driven by dialogue. The stories gotta go somewhere right?
It's over the top, a little unbelievable at times, but just close enough to both without spilling over. Somehow it felt longer than it was, but I think, in the end, it was the perfect length.
I give it 8.75 naked Chalamets out of 10 obligatory Bill Murrays. - DoNotComeToTheCinemaDepressed - 10 October 2022
📻 Basically a Masterwork of Idiosyncratic Cinema 📰
It's such a Beautiful Form of Cinema.
Things I Liked About the Movie -
1. EVERY single Scene is a Masterclass of Order, Sequence and Motion all Operating at the Same Time to Finally Deliver EVERY second of the Particular Scene.
2. Wes Andersons Vision of Shot Techniques, Scene Techniques and Set Designs are Pretty much Impeccable.
3. I Liked All 3 of the Stories a lot. Each of the Stories are all Interesting and Are Told with So Much Intrigue Laced into them.
4. The Cycling Reporter Introduction to the City of Ennui set the Tone for the Movie so Nicely.
Overall, it's Certainly not Everyones Thing but in my Opinion, It's one of the Most Masterful Pieces of Cinema Ever Created.
