City of Asteroids : stuck in the desert
New ensemble film by Wes Anderson featuring many regulars (Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe) but also newcomers (Tom Hanks, Maya Hawke), City of Asteroids takes place in an environment in contrast to that of The French Expedition. The latter focused on the adventures of the editorial staff of an American newspaper based in France. After the richness and energy of a French city, the director brings the viewer here to the middle of the American desert. A radically different universe, but one where it’s all over againa collective experience.
In a small town called Asteroid City because of the meteor that crashed there and where nuclear tests are being carried out, several people meet to attend an awards ceremony that honors five gifted young men for their scientific work. But following an event as unexpected as it is spectacular, the group has to live together longer than planned. A confinement in the open air and under a torrid heat marked by conflicts, laser gunshots, observations of the universe and a discovery capable of changing the world.
Existential boredom according to Wes Anderson
Among those present, the talented photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) has to announce to his four children the death of their mother. Movie star Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) is learning the lines for her next role. Two solitary and melancholy individuals facing the infinitely great, whose beauty and surprises fail to dispel their existential malaise.
A malaise conceived by a playwright embodied by Edward Norton, author of the work City of Asteroids then appropriated by the director played by Adrien Brody and his actors. The desert setting is therefore a fiction within a fiction that summarizes the torments of a writer and whose evolution resembles that of his drama, provoked by impulses and collective energies, but also thanks contingencies that give rise to moments of grace.
A late awakening
Moments of grace that come in a final act where the emotional awakening finally happens and the lethargy of most of these locked up and compartmentalized characters dissipates. While examining the creative process at the origin of a work, its ruptures of inspiration and its liberating movements of spontaneity, Wes Anderson focuses above all on the blocks.
Just like the writer played by Edward Norton, the viewer must therefore grope and hang on to try to glimpse the goal and purpose ofCity of Asteroids. If he never stops completely, it is evidently because the director’s sense of composition, his way of methodically overloading a shot or, conversely, purifying it without emptying it and his impressive handling of tracking shots capture constant attention.
If the boredom that conquers the characters and sometimes the one that conquers the viewer, City of Asteroids it seems difficult to attack as it is generous in its realization and in its – very – tense dialogues. However, the feeling of losing one’s job is often present. At least until the third act, where everyone seems perfectly in their place, where the liberation takes place and where the keys to the story are revealed. The sadness linked to a mourning then catches the eye, as well as the difficulty of passing from one role to another having to abandon one’s beauty. The succession of scenes ends up making sense, but unfortunately too late.
City of Asteroids it is to be discovered in cinemas from June 21, 2023. The film was selected in official competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.
Source: Cine Serie
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