Frederico Fellini vs Wes Anderson

When the great Italian film director Frederico Fellini suddenly died in 1993, we mourned his loss…no more of his fantastical, poetic, funny and tender portrayals of characters and events…my husband Gilles and I were in mourning… But then the wonderful whimsical film director Wes Anderson came onto the scene, and we were immediately drawn into his world of dysfunctional families, deep sea explorers, Indian train journeys, animated animals, boy scouts and more recently, a magical grand hotel in the sinister interbellum..

The “fantastical” Grand Budapest Hotel on the mountain top…

I was thrilled to see that Wes Anderson received a whopping 9 Oscar nominations for his film “The Grand Budapest Hotel“. Wes’ sets look surreal or “theatrical”, but they give immense charm to his stories, and remind me of many Frederico Fellini films, look at this:

 a scene from “And the Ship Sails On” by Frederico Fellini

A succession of surreal situations and sets give one of my favorite Fellini movies “E la Nave Va” (“And the Ship Sails On” available in the Criterion Collection) all it’s charm and power as an eclectic and eccentric cast of characters gather on luxury ship in the Mediterranean at the cusp of WW I to scatter the ashes of a famous opera singer…

on the ship’s deck, in a beautifully lit scene, one of the characters comments that “the moon does not look quite real!”

I wonder: would Fellini have loved Wes’ films?