He was never this tortured or heavyhanded until Isle of Dogs

what is heavy handed about the politics in this?

I almost wanna rewatch this all cause of Dev. It just makes so much sense that I now need him to be a mainstay. Wish he was the lead in the next feature instead if Michael Cera tbh

I think they are all pretty obvious allegories, but Poison and Henry Sugar are the dumbest.

Henry redistributes wealth to the masses, is accosted by the system, and becomes a philanthropist the correct way that gels with the system. It turns into a pretty pedantic hagiography.

The original Poison is about shellshock, but this one seems to be about the reactionary entitlement to victimhood and how dispelling that fantasy reveals their actual motivations- bigotry. It's such a anticlimax after such a gradual build.

But I also think Cumberbatch is a pretty lame duck. Rat Catcher and Swan have some actual swagger in their lead performance. One is about conspiracy as a contagion, the other more western peaceful opposition / martyrdom fetish. Fiennes and Friend do a lot more with the material though. Those are the least catatonic.

Aren’t these based on children short stories?

Have you read Dr Seuss? Heard of Aesop's Fables? Children's stories are often the most straightforward allegories or metaphors. They're typically very instructive.

Dahl himself says Poison is about shellshock. I haven't read his version. I will definitively say so no child would care about any of these works by Wes.

Dahl was also literally an antisemitic man. It's not absurd for Anderson to adapt a story of his that changes the source material enough slightly to try to elaborate on the undercurrents of bigotry.

None of this is as on-the-nose as you're saying it is either. But continue to whinge if you wish

"whinge"

Sorry for sharing my thoughts. I liked Asteroid City btw. I thought it was really vulnerable and human and personal. If anything it gets to the frustration that drives his increasingly motivated perspectives. It tries to explain why he takes it more seriously now.

I've seen pretty much everything he's ever done. I'm not a Wes hater at all. I just liked 2/4 of the shorts and find Benedict Cumberbatch uninteresting. Apologies

"Wes' political era is bordering on M Night territory. Nobody is looking to you for answers!" is not the kind of quote I'd find from someone just sharing their thoughts who finds Benedict Cumberbatch uninteresting.

Not trying to start a conflict here, just saying why I'm being so dismissive.

I think Poison is an M Night level execution of that twist/point, yes. It's kind of cheap. I think Wes has articulated the crisis he went through with this stuff in Asteroid City. I'd rather he relate to others who feel it (Asteroid City) than just diagnose it (Poison) or worse still prescribe for it (Isle of Dogs, Henry Sugar).

I'll still be tuning in to find out. I'll listen. He's one of the strongest technical minds in filmmaking, he's got a really gentile humanity, great comedic timing, a whole troop of A list actors on the call sheet, etc. I like Wes Anderson

I'll say this, I preferred these dropping as individual shorts instead of the French Dispatch wraparound. My eyes glazed a bit in the back half of that one. I think he's already a dense filmmaker and only gets more compressed and urgent in the short format. Nothing wrong with letting them breath imo.

I think one of the Schwartzman ones back in the day was extremely patient. The racecar one. Kind of out of character in hindsight

What crisis are you saying Anderson went through? Not a sarcastic question.

Isolated, neurotic workmanship to cope with things not only personal but interpersonal and societal. The whole movie is a pause on all of that and a moment to reconsider. Some of it is beyond the scope of his control. The answer isn't to work less, but i think he does rediscover purpose, the one Isle of Dogs and other latter work speak to. So not just Wes. The film has a lot of him in it, but I don't think it's just about him of course.

Isle of Dogs is literally revolutionary. French Dispatch is media, inside baseball on the ground of action, etc. It goes on from there. I need to revisit everything prior tbh. Especially Grand Budapest

To each their own
I don’t think Fiennes was able to find a way to make that character work, and I found Rat Catcher totally uninteresting

I mean it's an actual character. It's not a constipated face or a catatonic line delivery between bouts of starring into the camera.

I think Dev Patel’s performance in Poison is so great cause it manages to be both a line reading and a character
He toes that line pretty well

You seem to have a really good sense of what a given text is getting at
I feel like I usually get about 30%, and the rest is just going off vibes
I liked Poison because the setup is a simple conduit for metaphor
Just the concept of a guy fearful of a poisonous snake lying on him already feels full
The snake can be fear, racism, trauma, all types of stuff
We can bring in the context of the period, and have that hanging in the background
To me, it’s all those things at once, and that’s why I like it
It feels like the logical conclusion is to have the snake not actually be there at all
I think everyone can relate to that
Not wanting to move because a poisonous snake is on your chest, but it’s all in your head
I guess that is on the nose
But sometimes I like that cause “on the nose” storytelling can sometimes be a metaphor simplified