Wes Anderson has always inspired debates on form and substance in cinema. He is accused of favoring “style over substance,” to borrow a popular expression in his native Texas. Because it has a unique signature which borrows from the codes of theater. Because his films tell absurd or incredible stories and the effectiveness, coherence or credibility of the plot do not seem to be cardinal values for him.
The plots – and their outcome – are not what interests me most in cinema. This is not the case in literature either; what appeals to me above all in a novel is its writing. What interests me most in a film is its production. The way of telling the story, more than the story itself.
Some people go to see films for their headliners, their star actors or the legendary characters they play. For me, the cliché is true: cinema is essentially the art of the director. However, too often, for financing purposes for example, we boil down a film to its script. The cinema is not perceptible, black on white, in a scenario. It exists in what the filmmaker imagines between the lines.
Wes Anderson has a very particular deadpan humor, a unique way of directing actors and an inimitable directing style.
It is this marriage of form and substance that distinguishes him from his colleagues. We see a shot and we know it’s Wes Anderson.
This is what we say to ourselves when discovering Anderson’s four medium and short films adapted from short stories by the famous British writer Roald Dahl, which Netflix has been gradually revealing to its subscribers since Wednesday. The digital platform acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company in 2021, which holds the rights to adapt the writer’s work, for around US$1 billion.
The author of Charlie and the chocolate factorya children’s novel brought to the screen many times (Wonkaon display on December 15 and featuring Timothée Chalamet, is a pre-episode), has also signed Fantastic Mr. Fox, adapted in 2009 by Wes Anderson into a fabulous animated film.
This time, Anderson focuses on four short stories by Dahl, published in the 1970s and intended for an older audience (teenager or adult): The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The rat catcher And Venom.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NETFLIX
Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Kingsley in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Medium length film of 39 minutes, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, premiered at the last Venice Film Festival, stars Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of a wealthy casino gambling enthusiast who discovers the meditation technique of a man from India (Ben Kingsley) capable of seeing without opening your eyes. Even through a deck of cards, which can be useful in blackjack…
As in the three short films from the Roald Dahl collection, all 17 minutes long, Ralph Fiennes plays the writer who died in 1990. The four films are nothing less than homages to Dahl and his prose. Wes Anderson, who tries to adapt The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar for years, has chosen to remain as faithful as possible to the text, thanks to characters who are both actors and narrators of the story.
In all of the films in the collection, the staging is the closest thing to theater in Anderson’s already theatrical cinema, thanks to paintings with a very studied aesthetic and minimalist sets that seem straight out of embossed books.
The artistic direction is, as always with Anderson, magnificent, with the colors saturated and vivid, or on the contrary washed out and earthy, which have made the reputation of his cinema.
Without of course reaching the heights of The Grand Budapest Hotel Or The Royal Tenenbaums – we are in a completely different register, more artisanal – the result is delightful. Largely thanks to the uniformly offbeat tone of the actors, who form a troupe and reappear in the different films.
Rupert Friend notably plays a victim of bullying in the poetic and sordid Swan. Ralph Fiennes plays both Roald Dahl and a pest controller who has taken on the features of a rat in The rat catcher, which almost has horror film overtones. Richard Ayoade, also the host of a hilarious travel TV show (Travel Man), plays several characters in different films, with the same impassive face.
The signature of the staging is also always the same. That, rich and original, of one of the most unique filmmakers of his time.
On Netflix