Hello and welcome to these introductory notes for the film screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel at Thornton Viaduct.

This film moves between 2 time frames and is told from the perspective of a young author who encounters the owner of the once glamourous hotel, Zero Moustafa. He invites the author to dinner and tells the story of his early years as a lobby boy under the guidance of the exceptional and eccentric M. Gustave.

In its hey day, the hotel was extravagant, located in the Alps, and more reminiscent of a wedding cake than a building, with 7 floors, or layers, 2 turrets and a central façade with a pointed roof. There are 23 uniform windows on 3 of the layers, and the bottom third is a pastel pink, with the upper 2 thirds being cream with a blue roof. It sits in an alpine valley with trees rising up behind it. The interior is rich red with plush carpets.

When we meet the young writer who listens to Zero’s story, the hotel has lost its glamour and resembles more of a soviet brutalist building in concrete brown. Inside the décor is sparse and utilitarian and everything is in a variation of egg yolk orange – a limited colour palette being a signature feature of a Wes Anderson film.

The dining room where the young writer listens to the hotel owner’s story has 20 round tables, mostly empty, meticulously laid out in 5 rows of 5, with one extra table at the front, centre where the two men sit. The space is vast, possibly 3 floors high, and an enormous alpine scene dominates the back wall.

The hotel staff wonder why Zero only ever sleeps in the smallest bedroom, even when the hotel isn’t full, and this is revealed visually when we go back in time and realise that this is the room he slept in when he worked as a lobby boy.

We spend some time in a communal bathroom, where there are rows of baths in a large, shabby tiled space. The pale blue baths are in neat rows, and the tiled walls are 2-tone – blue at the bottom, rising to grubby white.

When the hotel owner begins his tale, we travel back to the Grand Hotel at its best, with its elegant sweeping double staircase that merges and leads down to the lobby.

This story takes us on a train, where the carriages are all dark wood panelled, through snowy landscapes, to a criminal internment camp – a bleak imposing building where cells accommodate up to 6 inmates with 2 3-bunk beds either side of a small window. Uncompromising symmetry is another Wes Anderson feature. And we also spend time in a museum where the walls are filled with paintings, rooms full of statues and cellars full of suits of armour.

A lawyer’s office is a cool blue space with orb lights hanging from the walls, and a pale wooden floor that is being scrubbed by a collection of people.

Mendls bakery produces the most exquisite cakes, like 3 small choux buns balanced on top of each other, covered in dripping icing. However, where they’re baked feels like a dingy cellar, and not altogether hygienic!

The observatory on the summit, as the name suggests is high in the mountains, on a snow-capped peak with a precarious looking viewing bridge. The only way in or out is via cable car.

The main characters we’ll meet are as follows..

The author arrives at the hotel in its faded state. He is white, upright and dressed in a dark green tweed suit. He wears glasses and is curious about the mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa who we first meet as an older man, with a greying beard, dark hair and brown skin. He wears dark trousers with a navy jacket, over a red roll next jumper – the red perhaps a nod to the hotel’s richer past.
Young Zero wears a lobby boy’s uniform of purple jacket and trousers with brass buttons and a hat. As a young man he draws a thin moustache across his upper lip.

As the tale begins, and we’re transported back in time, we meet M. Gustave, the concierge, our story’s central character. He is elegant, confident with light brown hair, an easy smile, and a moustache. He wears grey trousers and waistcoat with a white shirt and black bow tie, all under a rich purple coat. He wears a pin with an image of crossed keys on it, which is later revealed to be a secret society.

Madame D is a rich older woman who has been frequenting the hotel for almost 2 decades, and enjoying time with M. Gustave. Her white hair is carefully arranged on her head and she wears expensive clothes in rich, draping fabrics, with long strings of pearls round her neck.

Her son Dimitri walks with a swagger. He has black hair and olive skin and wears all black in a military style.

Dimitri has hired a hit man to take out anyone who stands in the way of him inheriting his mother’s fortune. The hit man is Jopling and has very short brown hair and pale skin. His face is stern and unforgiving. He wears a black leather belted jacket that has a flap he unbuttons to reveal a gun and a pocket for a hip flask. He wears golden skull brass knuckles on every finger.

Agatha is a baker at Mendls – she is a young white woman with long brown hair that is tied back. She has an open, innocent face and a Mexico-shaped birth mark on her right cheek. She wears simple, neutral coloured clothes that reflect her working status.

Kovacs the lawyer wears an expensive navy pin striped 3-piece suit. He has dark hair and olive skin, a beard and a persian cat.

Captain Henckels leads the border patrol and wears a grey uniform with a black hat. When it’s cold, he wears a long, heavy grey fur coat, while the other officers wear capes.
Henckles is white with light brown hair and a moustache that has been carefully curled up at the edges. He is a man of integrity.

There are other characters who M. Gustave and Zero meet on their journey, but they’re mostly fleeting.

Wes Anderson is known for his individual style, using rapid shakey zooms onto characters, slow motion walking, deliberately limited colour palettes and symmetrical compositions. These stylistic choices give his films a distinctive quality that have been described as having a ‘baroque pop bent.’

We hope you enjoy the film which is 1 hour and 39 minutes long.