The Grand Budapest Hotel
Great aestethic, beautifully shot, great vistas etc etc. What all of you have said allready, I agree. No point in harping on about things that's been said four times allready.
The acting in this is wierd. But I think it's a good wierd. Andersson creates a world of the absurd, wherein he puts characters of an equal mindset. That they react and act in a manner that to us seems strange is beside the point (or,perhaps, the very point). His way of writing his characters is what makes him stand out, as the stories themselves might not allways be as memmorable standing alone.
As to this specific story, it's kind of dark if you think about it. It has the basics of a "who dunnit?" mystery, enveloped into the lifestory of a hotel concierge, colored by the Andersson quirk and humour. Remove said Andersson filter, shift the focus a bit, add some crimescenes and you suddenly have a quite horrific thriller about a hotel employee and his part in a hired serial killers murder spree to protect a sinister plot from seeing the light of day. I mean, they pull a severed head from a picknick basket for f*** sake.
As for the humour in this, it's a bit hit and miss where most things do hit. I did like the gag with the pastries sent to the prison. It clearly contains escape tools, but the guard can't quite make himself destroy them while looking for contraband, so he just sends them through.
Much of the credit must go to Ralph Fiennes portrayal of M. Gustave. Put anyone less talented in that role and the movie would lose everything. And while she didn't get much to do, Saoirse Ronan is allways worth a watch (if you haven't seen HANNA (2011), go do that now) along with Willem Dafoe, here playing the mostly (if not totally) mute, bond style underling of the main antagonist.
I'm not allways a fan of Andersson, but so far I've at least liked most of his movies, even if none of them has blown me away completely. This one I do like and I believe it to be my favourite of his thus far.
Good nom, Ed!