domino harvey wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:07 amWhile watching, I kept coming back to the idea that the only possible move for Anderson to pivot to is not further maximalization (this film was barely coherent, any deeper in this direction and it will just become a collection of GIPHY links) but some form of restraint. Give us a small scale story, where the stylistic accoutrements flavor and highlight the action versus being the raison d’etre, or include me out. Because I can’t take too many more Anderson films like this.
I wrote those words a few years ago about
the French Dispatch, and I am happy to see that this is precisely what Anderson has done in all four of these shorts. Anderson's unusual approach of valuing and prioritizing the voice of Dahl's writing via the incessant narration, often even by the characters themselves, is not easily categorizable. The shorts obviously share a lineage with the theatrical troupe approach of having actors play multiple roles within the same production (not just via different shorts, but within the shorts as well), but these are neither Max Fischer-esque plays nor visualized radio programs. Rather, Anderson refuses to depict certain aspects of each story best left to the imagination. And for Anderson to finally, at long last, after so many years of increasingly intricate visualizations of quite possibly anything he could imagine, make this choice is a radical step-- and it allows for other, increasingly dormant strengths in his talent to shine.
The stories Anderson has picked are, other than the titular tale (which I have not read), not ones I'd have guessed he'd be drawn to. In fact, based on those I have read, there are a few missed opportunities here-- one can easily imagine Anderson having a grand time with something like
"Neck" or, if he really wanted to give himself a stretch, Dahl's grotesque parody of
Candide,
"Pig". But those we get do give him a chance to exercise some new muscles. Indeed,
the Swan resonates so strongly because it is devoid of humor-- Dahl gives his tale a mordantly amusing black heart of its increasing calamities, but Anderson finds and emphasizes the sadness of the material. Just as unexpected is
the Rat Catcher (which I have also not read), a wonderfully unpleasant premise which devolves into a series of shots in its finale completely alien to Anderson's style, representing more the kind of cheap and tawdry close-ups one might find in a horror anthology series from the 80s (even, perhaps, in the one Dahl himself used to host). The titular tale of this quartet is, as I noted when this was announced, seemingly custom made for Anderson's interests, and it does not disappoint in that arena. Dahl loves stories of gamblers engaging in unfair advantages (
"Taste",
"Dip in the Pool",
"the Man From the South", &c). But this iteration features an unexpected optimism I do not associate with Dahl (and for good reason) which acts as a differentiator from Dahl's other works in this vein.
The least successful of these shorts is
Poison. Alfred Hitchcock, literally at the height of his powers (he filmed it mere days before starting the shooting of
North by Northwest) already tried his hand at adapting this for his TV series and couldn't make it work, so I don't know what would compel any director, no matter how talented, to think they could do better. Anderson's one seeming advantage is in keeping the original ending. But it's immediately obvious why Hitchcock would mandate the change for his version, and that's that it throws away a terrific set-up on a familiar small note of racism/classism, a kind of slice of life realization of one's place in society that Katherine Mansfield specialized in (and Dahl did not). But perhaps there is just no good way to complete this compelling scenario without deflating its impact. I wish he'd picked another Dahl tale of an unexpected interaction between a doctor and patient,
"the Sound Machine", a darkly comic story of a man who invents a machine that reveals flora make horrifying screaming noises when plucked, shorn, chopped-down, &c. Especially with this quartet's emphasis on audio over visual, it'd be a stronger fit with some similar dynamics remaining.
As a side note, in contrast with
Asteroid City, I must commend several of the performances here. Kingsley, Patel, and Ayoade all bring liveliness to their perfs while still delivering their lines with a level of separation from the material that Anderson loves so much. He should invite them all back for future projects.