It’s not just that Ennui-sur-Blasé stands in for some imagined version of Paris, the kind that Francophile Americans imagine still exists in some corner of that storied town, a little seedy but also incredibly cute. The French Dispatch seems formulated in a lab for my narrative preferences. (Occasionally I might argue he’s too visually oriented.) For some people, his movies play like some kind of soothing ASMR for the eyes. He favors symmetry and fussiness, intricately designed tableaus and meticulously selected color palettes. In a plot- and spoiler-obsessed film culture, he’s the rare filmmaker who reminds people that movies are a primordially visual medium. The French Dispatch is nostalgic, a little weird, visually sumptuous - all characteristics that are far too uncommon in mainstream American film today. Part of the trouble with Wes Anderson is that I know he’s making movies specifically for me, an occasionally pretentious dreamer with francophile tendencies and a fetish for printed magazines. It’s just that the eponymous listlessness and indifference is, for me, its entire emotional effect. Wes Anderson’s latest (full title: The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun) is not bad, per se. The French Dispatch takes place in the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, France - the name of which, to my chagrin, neatly matches my feelings about the movie.
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