The Grand Budapest Hotel

2014 - Dir.: Wes Anderson - 1 hour 40 minutes. Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 27th September, 2014

While other filmmakers get their hands dirty in kitchen sinks, Wes Anderson surely slips his into luxury cashmere mittens. His films overflow with intricate detail and make no pretence of existing in a world other than their own, just-about-earthbound parallel universe. So the five-star premises of this energetic comedy “The Grand Budapest Hotel” – a wedding-cake-like, pastel-coloured establishment situated somewhere in 1930s Mitteleuropa and peopled by eccentrics and lunatics – feel like business as usual. His films, notably “The Royal Tenenbaums”, “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Fantastic Mr Fox”, have always been made on minimal budgets through independent producers - so having a substantial pot of money from 20th Century Fox has allowed him to let his imagination run riot. 
The extra cash has also permitted him to employ a whole army of outstanding actors from Ralph Fiennes in the lead… through Tilda Swinton (worth her weight in latex)… to F. Murray Abraham (Salieri in “Amadeus”). The film was mostly shot on location in East Germany using old technology (35mm film) before being digitally edited. Incidentally… The name of the fictional Republic of Zubrowka comes from the Polish vodka Zubrowka - vodka seasoned with Bison grass.     

TRIPADVISOR RECOMMENDS..
GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL *****
The Republic of Zubrowka 
The hotel and the republic are supposedly fictional… and yet the most respected hotel review site on the net lists it - and it has lots of reviews…." I really enjoyed every little bitty bit of the Grand Budapest Hotel. The only negative thing I can say is that there seemed to be several military men in and out of the lobby at different times. Almost as though they were casing the joint. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." Wendy J, Jacksonville, North Carolina