2023-08-10 06:10:53
Less than two hours following the start of the film, the light comes back on. The Parisian movie theater empties of its spectators while the credits continue to scroll on the screen. Hardly anyone to linger to read them, the big names in cinema follow one another sadly from the projector. How did such an exceptional cast manage to be so poorly exploited?
When leaving the room, the different profiles meet, opinions intersect and others diverge. From the cinephile frustrated at no longer rediscovering the authenticity of his favorite director, to the young teenager filled with having attended his first Wes Anderson, to the film student dissatisfied with a script deemed too superficial. No doubt, this eleventh film of Anderson divides. Explanations in the light of its release in Lebanese theaters.
Steve Carell dans « Asteroid City ». Photo DR
Asteroid City tells two simultaneous stories that take place in 1955. A fictional play that takes place in the American desert where an astronomy competition takes place, and in parallel all the part of the creation and the staging of this play with its author and actors. An uncomplicated plot with eccentric characters, faithful to the filmmaker’s paw. Nothing really out of the ordinary so far, and yet Asteroid City has been treated to a real wave of attention, a popularization of the film and the one who brings it to life, with a new, younger audience.
The TikTok craze
As we know, social networks, and even more specifically TikTok, are the prerogative of young people. So when the director finds himself in the spotlight thanks to the #AccidentlyWesAnderson trend – a trend which consists in transforming his daily life into a film by the filmmaker by trying to reproduce the aesthetics so particular of this one –, there are thousands teenagers and young adults who lend themselves to the game, and, having never watched a Wes Anderson film, are already having fun filming in his own way. And now this new generation, which was perhaps less inclined to discover retro-style films, finds itself immediately attracted by this unique aesthetic, and finds in Asteroid City a particular attraction. The Lebanese TikTokers, never behind a trend, are also getting started by filming neighborhoods, cities or places in the country in the manner of Wes Anderson.
@tarekzeinoun A Wes Anderson adventure in Beirut ? #wesandersonedit #wesandersontrend #Lebanon #Beirut #filmaesthetic #fyp ♬ Obituary – Alexandre Desplat
Théa, 16, admits that she only knew the identity of this director through “these famous videos on social networks, so I was delighted to finally discover on the big screen the techniques that we were all trying to reproduce. on our smartphones.
It must be said that the film fascinates with its visuals. The director masters his aesthetic to perfection. He affirms a very theatrical staging by displaying a colorimetry in warm tones, without forgetting his obsession with pastel colors and details, his own uniforms and impeccably symmetrical shots. What better way to discover the artist’s work for the first time? Gen Z is fulfilled.
And then if there is indeed an audience to which Wes Anderson’s cinema speaks, it is young people. Young people who have experienced the loneliness of confinement in the foreground and therefore find themselves in Anderson’s scenarios, which very often contain very young characters or adults who have forgotten to grow up, living in unreal spaces that seem to imprison them. A scenario that delights with the presence of contemporary and timeless realities so well described in this new work.
@maryintheprairie My favorite trend yet… ? #wedandersonedit #wesandersonfilm #lebanon ♬ Obituary – Alexandre Desplat
Of course, this newfound popularity has not been without controversy. Some critics believe that the film has been overly “hyped” by TikTok , and that this reversal of the order of things, the discovery of the film in an un”natural” way, calls for different expectations, much more superficial than those of the traditional cinephile.
Filmmaker or fashion designer?
Since its inception, Wes Anderson has won over moviegoers with its unique and recognizable visual identity among a thousand. It is safe to say that the artist has reached the pinnacle of his art with The Grand Budapest Hotel, the spearhead of his filmography. However, Asteroid City confronts us with a reality; the director seems to have locked himself in his own universe and critics agree that the director has difficulty reinventing himself. Its formula, which for a long time seemed magical to us, now seems too familiar to us and ends up impressing us less.
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That’s the risk when you’re a director with an identity as strong as Anderson; no longer knowing when we stop inventing and we start caricaturing ourselves. And it is then inevitably that we lose the authenticity of his first films with now a style that is far too mastered and therefore with almost zero emotional stakes. Jad, 21, a big fan of cinema and a follower of Anderson’s productions, says: “We have the impression of seeing the same themes, the same motifs, the same script sequences that made the success of his previous films and the form unfortunately takes too much precedence over substance. Anderson, far too focused on the symmetry of his shots, forgets to take an interest in what the film has to tell by itself… He goes on to say that the filmmaker seems “to have locked himself in a certain self-satisfaction, and we find ourselves watching a film regarding Wes Anderson, who seems to present his new creations to us like a fashion show, excluding all the public, making a film which is made for critics and for its actors, but which occurrence leaves us in an abyssal void.
Asteroid City remains a double-edged cinematic experience; a film that delights fans of Wes Anderson’s unique style, that manages to captivate a new, younger audience through the power of social media, but also a film that raises questions regarding the director’s need to take risks to preserve his creative genius. But, it is essential to recognize that the popularity of Asteroid City has opened doors for new moviegoers, perhaps inspiring them to further explore the rich universes of independent and classic cinemas, in a world where virality can propel a work artistic to new heights.
Less than two hours following the start of the film, the light comes back on. The Parisian movie theater empties of its spectators while the credits continue to scroll on the screen. Hardly anyone to linger to read them, the big names in cinema follow one another sadly from the projector. How did such an exceptional cast manage to be so poorly exploited?…
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