The French Dispatch

The French Dispatch (2021)

Written and Directed by: Wes Anderson
Cinematography: Robert David Yeoman
Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2021.

The French Dispatch is a buffet of the arts. It goes to prove that film as a medium allows us to explore any and all possible combinations of art forms that are available. We have seen musicals, which use extensive amounts of music to tell story, like Annette, La La Land. We have seen TV or dialogue heavy film like Before Sunrise, where the writing takes a front seat. We have seen silent films or extremely visual films like Roma, where cinematography takes a front seat. We have seen films of Agnes Varda, where she combines the art of photography and film. We have seen films like Paterson, where the art form of poetry and film come together. Wes Anderson uses a lot of art forms, and combines them in a way that he creates an own artistic voice of his own. He doesn't necessarily does that by creating different worlds, he does that with his style and his craft. A godly voice over narrating the story, whimsical characters running around, with a lot of visual dark comedy happening with beautifully constructed set pieces. 

The French Dispatch is just like a magazine, it has different stories and different sections. For me, the most engaging story was the first one - the one of the troubled psychopath artist. I think what Wes Anderson did was, he wanted to explore the debate of the art vs the artist - which is so prevalent in the heavily political environment. But he didn't have the artist do something wrong which would make him get cancelled, he made him a straight up murderer and then played the same debate, which makes for a very interesting conflict. If you even remotely feel his art should be allowed to the public, then the artists who are cancelled for less scandalous acts should definitely be allowed to create. It's a very interesting short. I enjoyed the others too, but more so for the style and the craft than the story.