C‘It is a moment, in the first minutes of The Phoenician plot by Wes Andersonin which Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro)very rich entrepreneur who survived six attacks, declares with sly indifference: “I don’t need human rights”. It is a joke that makes you laugh, of course, but that also returns the measure of the sweet and sour tone of the new film by Wes Andersonnow in cinemas.
An adventurous and surreal comedy set in a fictitious “perpetual war zone” called Phoenician (evident echo of Palestine), that mixes geopolitical criticism and family storyspy story and religious reflection, with the usual, unmistakable pastel style of Wes. But if it is true that Anderson’s aesthetic remains unique and recognizable, it is also true that from some films this part seems to repeat itself. And the risk of tiredness is, even among the most loyal fans.
The Phoenician plot by Wes Anderson, the plot
Fifty years. Zsa-Zsa Korda, Aviation and infrastructure magnate (dams, resorts, railways)he is the richest man in Europe and one of the most hated in the world. Without a passport and unscrupulous, trafficking with weapons as they were candy and has an unlikely series of murder attempts behind. In view of yet another possible departure, he decides to choose his only female daughter, Liesl (My threapleton; daughter of Kate Winslet), as heir of an empire as vast as they are compromised. Too bad that Liesl, aspiring nun and pipe smoker, hasn’t seen him for years.
Their “flashback” takes place in the form of a trial period in which Korda reveals them – with the help of a system of shoes that symbolize shares and quotas – the complex map of the Phoenician geopolitics. Around them, spies, American businessmen, unscrupulous colonizers, armed revolutionaries and divine visions, in a pastiche that mixes cold war, cheap satire are rotatedpop nostalgia and chronicle of an affection never blossomed.
Benicio del Toro in a scene of “The Phoenician plot”. (Universal)
The Phoenician plotthe review
The Phoenician plot It is a typically Andersonian film, perhaps even too much. There is everything we know well of his cinema: Perfect symmetries, meticulous scenography, Rétro costumes (signed by Milena Canonero), Alexandre Desplat soundtrack, choral cast and imprisonmentre. The problem, however, is precisely this: everything is already known, expected, recognizable. You have the feeling of still being inside Grand Budapest Hotelor never to have come out of The French dispatch. As if the director, increasingly style of style rather than content, was making variations on the same film for years.
Yet, on closer inspection, The Phoenician plot It has something more. Or rather, he has something different: a charismatic and elusive protagonist like Zsa-Zsa Korda, played by one Amazing Benicio del Toro, which mixes Mr. Fox and Donald Trump, Orson Welles and Howard Hughesin a grotesque and human character, Mephistophelic and irresistible. There is also a strongly political dimension, more marked than in the previous Anderson filmswhich uses the geographical fiction of Phoenician to tell the modern conflicts, the economic exploitation and the banality of global power.
Benicio del Toro and Mia Threateleton in a scene of “La Fenicia plot” by Wes Anderson. (Universal)
But The Phoenician plot It is also, perhaps above all, a film on the Father-Figlia relationship, on the difficulty of recognizing itself, on the idea that every project-even the craziest, even the most lucid-can fail miserably when the affection comes into play. In this sense, the film connects to Rush, The tenderbaums, Moonrise Kingdomand resumes one of the most sincere thematic lines of Anderson’s filmography: the dysfunctional family, the unwanted trauma, the need for love and recognition. Where the plot (Phoenician and not) risks making himself too intricate or dispersive, it is this Dolceamara melancholy that keeps the film standing.
Of course, not everything works: the excess of subtrame, the almost caricatured presence of dozens of characters, some sequences too pleased in their visual construction. But there is also a brilliant lightness, an ironic reflection on faith (see the dreamlike visions in black and white with Willem Dafoe and a surprise creator), and a desire to play with the genres that makes the film, if not original, at least unpredictable. The impression, in the end, is that Anderson does not want to tell stories anymore, as to stage worlds. And in this remains a master.
The cast
As always, the cast is stellar. Benicio del Toro is the heart of the film, dark and clownescoalways in the balance between tragedy and farce. My Threapleton (daughter of Kate Winslet) is a revelation in the role of Liesl, a fragile and strong, sweet and disillusioned figure. Michael Cera steals the scene in every apparition, in the role of an entomologist guardian with a bizarre intelligence. Willem Dafoe is the comic and spiritual soul of the film, while Benedict Cumberbatch gives body to a grotesque and “biblical” villain.
Small but significant cameos revolve around them: Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston (protagonist with Hanks of a cult scene), Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Richard Ayoade. A real Andersonian “family”, in a work that celebrates excess and at the same time reveals the cracks.
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