MEXICO CITY (Process).- In the middle of the fifties, in a fictitious city in the American desert, Asteroid City, a school contest is organized where schoolchildren arrive with their parents. Augie (Jason Schwartzman) goes with his four children, with the tupperware that contains the ashes of his deceased wife, and later his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) to that poster villa, in saturated colors like a spectacular advertisement of the time. , and a whole fair of American or Western characters ranging from science fiction to Tennessee Williams theatrics.
Although Wes Anderson plays with several genres, Asteroid City (United States, 2023) is neither a western nor a science fiction film, it is something like a film and television set, an exercise in the Actor’s Studio, the abysmal game of a film within from another movie, and so on; the welcome sign to the population announces that Asteroid City has 87 inhabitants, perhaps the locals or the mere film crew plus the multiple cast that includes actors like Tilda Swinton (the scientist in charge of the observatory), or Scarlett Johansson in the role of a famous actress rehearsing the role of a famous actress.
Despite being eccentric like few others, Wes Anderson’s cinema is always clear, it does not burden the public with the task of deciphering the plot or message; That peculiar style that characterizes him and that his admirers explain as a result of the tension between order and chaos, constantly clarifies attitudes and slip-ups. It is worth noting the difference between the bewilderment of his characters, serious and exaggeratedly structured –like the captain of the boy scouts in Moonrise Kingdom (2012), naive at heart–, against the bewilderment of the viewer who is surprised by the candor of they. Or no matter how dysfunctional the family is, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), what could pass for tragic or sordid is diluted by an act of love, so obvious that it seems trivial, never solemn.
Perhaps more than his previous work, Asteroid City showcases this master of art and philosophy’s taste for animated cinema in the manner of the island of dogs either the fantastic mr fox; the plasticity of the acting game, gestures, movement and position in space are pure stop motion, as if the director placed the actor Rupert Friend on the set, dressed him as a cowboy and encouraged him to sing. A large part of the order so noticeable in the sequences through which the camera slides, or those shots that jump almost with a syncopated rhythm, results from this stop motion technique.
On the horizon of the Nevada desert, where Asteroid City is located, you can see the mushroom of atomic tests, the army is also out there, an institution that to a spirit as eccentric as Anderson seems like an animated piece. There is a lot of talk about the influences of directors like Woody Allen, Satyajit Ray or Polanski in his work, but I am surprised that it has not been noticed that Asteroid City is a form of response, perhaps too subtle, to the second part of Twin Peaks by David Lynch; What happens is that Wes Anderson does not allow himself to be left in the dark, his characters realize that they are not in control of themselves, they experience vertigo, but they adopt the absurd as the norm of reality.
