When The French Dispatch, the new film by Wes Anderson, was released in New York, its American distributors decided to create a promotional stunt and took over the Angelica Cinema in Soho. The entire cinema, on two floors, was designed based on the film. The concession stand at the entrance was turned into Marseille Bob’s nightclub and the basement floor was designed after one of the many tunnels in the film. The distributor believed that a new Wes Anderson film would be a massive event in New York. At first it seemed they were right: the opening weeks justified the effort.
Anderson, strangely, is associated with New York cinema even though he was born in Texas, lives in France, and filmed his new movie entirely in a studio in Germany. But apparently, his most New York film, The Royal Tenenbaums, and the fact that Anderson is largely the archetype of the hipster generation, made New York the main base for his audience. In the end, the initial success faded and the film, which opened strongly, gradually declined. The audience and critics felt that Anderson was doing again what Anderson always does. It seems that working with his regular production designer, Adam Stockhausen, and his composer, Alexander Desplat, they almost already know in advance what the work will be. One frame from a Wes Anderson film or one sound from the soundtrack that dictates a march rhythm leaves no doubt who directed it.
This is the curse of artists: what makes them adored is also what will eventually cause their audience to get bored, to claim they are repetitive, to complain they have become predictable. There is a chance that The French Dispatch will be the film where Anderson’s fans decide to move on. But that would be a mistake. It is a brilliant, unique film by a director who continues to be at the peak of his creativity.
I watched The French Dispatch for the first time, but not the last, in June in New York, when the Angelica Cinema was entirely decorated as a set from the film, for example, the concession stand at the entrance turned into Marseille Bob’s club.
Wes Anderson is a director who throughout his career negotiates between form and content. Many directors prioritize one over the other, emphasizing visual language and design over minor stories, or calming cinematic acrobatics to emphasize story and characters. But from film to film, Anderson intensifies both channels. His design becomes increasingly lavish and dazzling as his story becomes more rich, complex, and populated with characters. Anderson seems to create out of compulsion: more words, more colors, more shapes.
Therefore, a shallow look at the shots or trailers might create the misleading impression that The French Dispatch is more of the same, but it is not. In fact, the film has a narrative ambition different from Anderson’s previous works.
All of Anderson’s films so far deal with the essence of storytelling, how humans tell stories to themselves. They are built as stories within stories, sometimes within even more stories. Anderson is highly cinematic and visual, but films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar begin with characters reading from a book.
The French Dispatch, on the other hand, is structured differently. It is an epic creation that weaves in espionage, a classic adventure film, and family drama. The film, set in 1950, centers on an industrialist named Zeze Korda. This character will raise eyebrows for film history enthusiasts. Korda in the film is a ruthless businessman who does not hesitate to steal, exploit, and destroy for profit. He does not shy away from slavery, poverty, or starvation to achieve his schemes and maximize his earnings. He is charming but immoral. His greed comes at a cost: repeated assassination attempts are made on his life, and it seems everyone wants him dead, from governments trying to sabotage his business to competitors worldwide who prefer life without him.
In one of these assassination attempts, Korda goes to a heavenly tribunal, where Bill Murray plays God, who tells him he has no entry to paradise. Korda returns to life and decides to leave all his business and wealth to his daughter, Lisel, whom he has not seen since she was five, and who has chosen a life of nuns in a Catholic convent. Lisel, aware of her father’s corrupt and violent past, tries to redeem him. Korda, seeking someone he trusts to run his empire in case of a successful assassination, tries to corrupt her and tempt her to leave religion for a life of indulgence. The father-daughter relationship develops as he attempts to implement his plan to build a grand industrial infrastructure in the country of Phoenicia, using deceit, exploitation, and lies to achieve his vision.
Until now, Anderson’s films seemed to exist in a private bubble, ideas adopted from books and absurd characters he invented, often in collaboration with a screenwriter partner. Anderson’s films rarely touched real life, confined to well-designed studios with plots disconnected from reality or current events. Suddenly, in this film, it seems Anderson watches television and responds to the surrounding world. Corrupt and unrestrained industrialists seeking to conquer countries to become rulers, kings, or presidents? Tycoons employing only family members, concerned only with personal wealth? Charismatic and quick-tongued businessmen expert at closing deals? Where did Anderson get this idea if not from recent headlines? Is Zeze Korda a Musk? Bezos? Trump? Or another industrialist whose businesses topple governments?
But alongside this surprising venture into current affairs, there is something new in Anderson: God. And not only him, also archangels who serve as advocates in the gates of heaven, a Catholic nun trying to redeem her father’s soul, and a plot revolving around a country named Phoenicia. Anderson effectively creates a religious film, rooted in biblical history. The actors portraying heaven scenes appear in black and white in credits under the title The Biblical Crew. Phoenicia is not a fictional country if one goes back 2,500 years to the region of Tyre and Sidon. The map of Phoenicia that Korda plans to conquer through his money and factories contains locations called the Melchizedek Desert, the Methuselah Bay, the Nebuchadnezzar Valley, and Jeroboam Hill.
Anderson stated in interviews that he grew up in a religious household, and though he is no longer religious, he cannot deny his upbringing. Within a crazy, twist-filled plot, full of whim and absurdity, with huge comic moments and many jokes (Michael Cera is a surprise with a genius comic role), The French Dispatch is essentially a prayer film, designed like a baroque and rococo cathedral. A prayer for rulers, industrialists, and the powerful to repent, ending slavery, human trafficking, hunger, poverty, and exploitation, and to start caring for the weak and the disadvantaged.