The Grand Budapest Hotel [Blu-ray]

Spoilers! I think everyone misses the idea behind this movie. It takes place during the Holocaust and if you were as confused as I was about this movie, it may help you to understand it if you place Gustave in the place of the older Zero. It makes so much more sense this way! Gustave was blonde and blue eyed. The Nazi's (or ZZ in this movie) would have had no problem with him unless he harbored Jews or foreigners or was actually homosexual which I believe he wasn't, he was just a flamboyant straight man who was bullied and mocked. After all, Abraham's character says Gustave lived in a time past his own. Anyway, at the end if the movie, something significant happens. The movie suddenly turns black and white. I take this to mean, of course what's coming is significant and dark, but also gray... In that what is about to happen may be the truth or not, it's black and white, we are in some kind of middle ground also expressed by the poem told by Agatha, that a moment in time two brothers, one from the East (Zero) and one from the West (Gustave) cross paths and become one. Then we see Zero get smashed with a rifle butt and Gustave lose it. I think Gustave likely didn't react that way and regretted it forever. He then assumed the persona of his best friend Zero and likely concocted stories seen in the news paper about how Zero escaped a Nazi camp in an uprising. Gustave then likely could have truly used the hotel to hide Jews and whomever as seen in the papers. Perhaps once again, he didn't, wished he had, and that added to his depression.Now, older Zero, or Gustave... Had brown eyes. Blank eyes really. I think it is to reflect Gustave's emptiness. Agatha was killed during the "Prussian Grippe" meaning German grip.. She was Scottish in the film, a prime candidate for Nazi encampment. The older man at the end says he kept open the hotel in honor of Agatha. If it's Gustave as I believe, it is the truth. Paying close attention, Gustave respected Agatha because his "brother" loved her so well and in turn I believe Gustave would have loved her just the same. The old man also sleeps in the servant's quarters.. Likely where Zero stayed. I think Gustave could have slept there too in order to feel closer to his deceased friend whom he failed to save.Truthfully, it could go either way. But there is a moment on the train when Abraham narrates that he never asked Gustave where he was from, and never asked about his family. We see a close up of Gustave staring blankly at the bunk above him where Zero was sleeping during this.. It makes me feel as though Gustave was thinking this and in turn, saying it. Not Zero. We find out later after a fight between the two that Zero left his country because of a civil war and his parents were killed. I think Gustave regrets this fight severely. If he had asked Zero ahead of time, he wouldn't have hurt Zero the way he did. Sure they make up, but the event after are very wacky and likely twisted truths.In the end, I feel like the older man then presents himself as Gustave when he lays on the table a room key with Gustave's suite on it. I feel he was saying, this is who i am. Truthfully though, they were the same. But Gustave says that Zero was the better lobby boy, he was the most accommodating, more reason to think we are hearing Gustave's regret for not protecting his friend.Other keys to this theory is the opening lines from the author about how writers understand when they are hearing a story and it's up to readers to interpret things themselves and to analyze things to understand the correctly. This would be pointless words of there wasn't a twist at the end as I believe there is.It's a phenomenal film. I may be wrong. But I encourage all to watch this movie with the idea that Gustave is the old man who has come to model himself after Zero, a merging of two brothers, one who died, and one who regretted not being able to save him.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, directed by Wes Anderson is chock full of Hollywood A-listers in both cameo and substantial roles and with Anderson at the helm, the result is a film so quirky and brilliant that you’ll want to see it more than once. The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson’s best film to date, a wry, exceptionally well-structured 5-act Shakespearean dramedy. If you liked any of Anderson’s prior movies, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, or The Darjeeling Limited, to name a few, then The Grand Budapest Hotel will satisfy you in a way that these previous gems just narrowly missed.First there’s the superb M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), impeccably dressed with such dizzying attention to detail that Coco Chanel would be jealous. Gustave runs the GBH, set amid a coniferous-lined mountainside, always gorgeously blanketed with a light dusting of snow, so breathtakingly beautiful it looks like CGI. Anderson used more than one locale for the filming to get just the right feel for the distinguished and sumptuous backdrop to the movie. At the GBH, Gustave not only runs a tight, elegantly appointed ship, he has a cadre of patrons, all older, almost all female, who return to the GBH to partake of the amenities that only M. Gustave can provide. The young Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), so called, he says, because after losing his family and home in the war -- the movie is sandwiched between the first and second World Wars -- he is nothing and has no one. Zero is hired by M. Gustave to maintain a specific role at the hotel, the actual description of which is unclear for while Gustave has a list of “don’ts”, it seems the lobby boy’s biggest “do” is to be Gustave’s personal assistant. Throughout the movie, we see Zero’s allegiance to Gustave unfold and grow in a variety of wry and often hilarious ways.The entire story is told in flashback by the enigmatic owner of the hotel, a much older Zero (F. Murray Abraham), to the Young Writer (Jude Law), who is a patron of the current GBH. With it’s halcyon days behind it, a skeleton crew running it, and very few guests, the GBH is still going, maybe not strong, but going. Abraham invites Law to join him for dinner and over many courses, unravels the beguiling history behind the hotel. After one of Gustave’s favored patrons, Madame D. (a sublime Tilda Swinton) is murdered, Gustave travels to Madame D’s side because, “she needs me,” meaning, he needs to make sure 1) she looks good and 2) to find out whether she left him a little something in her will. At the reading, the lawyer, Deputy Kovacs (Jeff Goldblum) announces to the family that Madame D. has left Gustave the priceless painting, “Boy With Apple” which, according to Gustave, they had admired together many times. Chaos ensues as the heirs, led by Madame D’s son, Dmitri (Adrien Brody) along with his henchman, Jopling (Willem Dafoe), try to reclaim what they believe is rightfully the family’s. The film is full of fabulously quirky observations such as when Gustave views the dead body of Madame D, examines her nail polish and expresses approval for the new color because even in death, style and elegance are paramount.My favorite line in the movie is Gustave’s, spoken during a moment when he and the Lobby Boy are trying to puzzle out the mystery behind the dilemma Gustave finds himself in:“The plot thickens, as they say. Why, by the way? Is it a soup metaphor?”I absolutely will not tell you what mess they are in as the film is all to methodical to spoil, but I will say that I frequently laughed out loud throughout the movie. Anderson’s usual themes of abandonment, trouble with authority, and overarching loyalty in the face of adversity are all present. The cast goes on and on: Harvey Keitel, Ed Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and a host of others makes this film feel like summer camp for A-Listers The Grand Budapest Hotel is not for everyone. My mother thought it was weird, but she’s 80 and subtle, facetious humor is often lost on her. Me, I thought it was brilliant.