Ok so i've seen two quite different Wes Anderson films this week and i really enjoyed them both , this I think is a bit of a personal / emotional achievement for me because i think only very happy people can enjoy the weird off beat humor of a Wes Anderson film , in the past i have not. However, this week i laughed along with everyone watching the Fantastic Mr Fox and was very moved a tickled by his first major feature The Royal Tenanbaums. previously i have been board to sleep by Life Aquatic and turned of The Darjeeling Limited half way through!! i cant wait to watch them again , with a happier disposition.
to begin with The Fantastic Mr fox was very very funny, this is what you would hope from a children's Roald Dahl story! not usually into this kinda of animation i went into the film with very low hopes and no expectation's for it to be a good film, however i was very much impressed , the animation gave it a quirky edge and an almost vintage and organic feel compared to the big Pixar movies like UP! which was refreshing and the feeling worked really well with the dry wit of the script.
So Anderson brings along some of the old favorites including a small part for his bessie Owen Wilson. the fimiliar voices for me worked well with the script, even though it was commented that George Clooney's voice is emotionless it seemed very appropriate for this sleek fox.
The plot which stayed very true to the book with little embellishment ( like it needed any ! )
follows the main character Mr Fox and his family Mrs Fox and son Ash and visiting nephew Kristopherson , along with a host of animal friends who all find themselves facing termination from the horrible farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean! they are determined to capture mr fox whatever the cost and are driven quite mad by it.
its not the plot that really made me enjoy it although the film clearly needs a skeleton to hold it together :)
it was the script and the dry humor!! " you made a bad song " when Jarvis Cocker is singing round the camp fire , really epitomizes the jokes in the film , unexpected , sarcastic and just really funny :)
i felt a little gutted that the film was mainly aimed at children because i feel a more adult audience would really appreciate the film as well . i left the cinema feeling a little lighter and possibly a little nostalgic to the childhood joy of laughing at a film for all the right reasons.
Ok so moving onto The Royal Tenanbaums which i decided to watch after the success of Fantastic Mr fox, nominated for an oscar for the best writing screen play you would expect something a little special and thats what you get :)
the film is based around the family Tenanbaum, it opens with a book cover and the chapters of the book create the structure of the film. each time a new chapter/turning point occurs there is a shot of a page of a book including chapter header and a writing which says a bit about setting.
this really works because the film does have a child like story telling sort of feel, from the beginning with the exaggerated ideas of the Tenanbaum's genius this is followed through as an idea in the film with the narrator pointing out things that are obvious to the audience .
Another thing which shows the idea of a simple story telling prospectus is the characters in the film being introduced all at the beginning so the audience no who everyone is going to be . i found that really cute and even though it is done allot in children's films and books it really worked well here , and this fearlessness to be simple but yet sort of ingenious is probably why the screen play and writing won so much critical appreciation.
the story follows the lives of the family when they are grown up, their father who has become estranged from them decided when he heres of his wife's plans to re-marry to tell the family he is dying and as a outcome of that news their adult children and he move back into there childhood home which the mother still lives.
so with that you get a great ensamble peice with the wacky control/saftey obssesed eldest son and the deppresive adopted child, owen wilson plays the big shot writer who was a very close childhood friend and his brother plays the youngest Tenanbaum who was a Tennis pro until a slight mental colapse - this being one of the laugh out loud moments of the film for me, when he goes for the ball and just throws his bat away i was pretty much on the floor!
ok so the unexplainable twisty script just works so well with the mix of odd characters, the colours and brights but never shiny , so like Tim Burton but never artificial looking always natural textures like bright pink cotton and wood ect . this works well with the almost pop art look of the cinematography. Because of the beight colours it adds to the comedy, i think if it was a gothic looking film the whole ideas would be far to melancoly to work but the bright colours manage to keep it on the farcial side of things rather than deppressing. especially when the tennis pro decides enough is enough and tries to kill himself by slitting his wrists the red blood looks so bright that what could have been a very sad scene becomes quite beautiful .
hope this diddnt get to un-organised in thought , just my thoughts seem to be allover the place with this film, overall i think - "WOW" "this looks good and im laughing out loud!"
7.5/10
love xxx
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