The grand budapest hotel

Plot:

Ateenagegirl visits the monument of the writer who penned the book, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. In 1968, that author was inspired to write the book when he visited that hotel, located in the European mountainous country formerly known as Zubrowka. Once a luxurious hotel, it, in 1968, has fallen on hard times. The author meets the then current owner, M. Zero Moustafa, who recounts the story of how he became the hotel’s owner and why he holds onto it and keeps it open despite it obviously making him no money. Zero’s story begins in 1932, when the hotel was in its golden era. Zero was the novice immigrant lobby boy, who, like all the other hotel staff, was under the guidance of M. Gustave H., the devoted concierge.

Gustave aimed to please, he giving the guests whatever they wanted, especially the wealthy blonde women. The story largely revolves around one of those women, the wealthy Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe-und-Taxis - better known as Mme. D. - her opportunistic son Dimitri, the bequeathing of a valuable painting called “Boy with Apple” to Gustave, the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death which is initially pinned on Gustave, and the attempts of Zero, his girlfriend - a baker’s assistant named Agatha - and others to clear Gustave’s name while Dimitri does whatever he needs to get what he believes is rightfully his, namely the painting.

Additional distinctively-styled ensemble projects followed in the form of Moonrise Kingdom in 2012, the commercially successful The Grand Budapest Hotel was released in 2014, becoming one of Anderson’s most popular movies.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is not exactly an adaptation, but it borrows large swaths of material from an Austrian author named Stefan Zweig’s, whose work was both tragic and fanciful. The DNA of his literary world runs through the dialogue, scenes, settings, and characters of The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Zweig himself served as an inspiration for the movie’s Author (Old and Young), and as a model for M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes).

While the main story exists in a fantasy universe, the world created by Anderson’s clearly references the buildup to World War II as Hitler rose to power and prepared to change history. In an essay written for The Atlantic, former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Repbulic Norman L. Eisen writes meaningfully about how The Grand Budapest Hotel is “ one of the smartest and most sophisticated movies ever made about both the causes of the Holocaust and its consequences.”

Eisen also pointed out that the film’s characters are “a warm tribute to the three main popula- tions targeted by the Nazis.” The openly bisexual Gustave stands in for the gay men placed in concentration camps by the Nazis. Zero, whose family was killed in his village, represents the ethnic minorities persecuted during the Holocaust. Finally, the Jewish Deputy Kovacs is chased down and killed by the murderous Jopling.

Wes Anderson’s movies are littered with characters in the process of reinventing themselves, and The Grand Budapest Hotel might have more reinvention happening than any of his other movies.