The French Dispatch 4K 2021

I first encountered Wes Anderson's work back in 2012. The first film I saw was Moonrise Kingdom, and although I didn't become an ardent fan of the director after watching it, I couldn't help but notice his unique theatrical framing, color correction, and recognizable plot twists. Then I watched many of his works (some earlier, some later), and they were all equally unique. For me, Wes Anderson came to embody the very essence of 21st-century cinema. At times absurd, absolutely caricatured, and sometimes even cardboard-like, he turned intimate images with static frames into something magical, namely, he gave the viewer the opportunity to find themselves in a kind of adult fairy tale not devoid of black humor.

For me, The French Dispatch did not repeat this fairy tale. Wes drowned in self-repetition, and although watching what was happening on the screen was still aesthetically pleasing, and the star-studded cast consisting of the director's friends kept me from getting bored, the short stories contained in this film left me indifferent. The exaggerated caricature was excessive here.

Of all the parts of the film, I would like to highlight the opening one, entitled “The Reinforced Concrete Masterpiece,” starring Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, and Léa Seydoux. In my opinion, this was the strongest part of the film. It is the director's unique reflection on what art means to the creator and to the consumer.

Fans of the director will not be left indifferent by this film. It still has everything we love about the director, but for me, this time around, it was too much.