A Journal of International Travel and Music

Congratulations, Grand Budapest! (& more commentary on the movie)

23/2/2015

Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson's stunning story set in a fictional Central European country, has taken home four Oscars: Production Design, Makeup & Hairstyling, Original Score and Costume Design. I'd thought it was a strong candidate for Best Screenplay and was a little surprised at the award for Best Score.

I'll come back to the score in a later post, after I've had time for a little research...

For now, I'd like to add a few remarks on costuming. In particular, I'm struck by the uniforms, which do have a certain period flair. U.S. News & World Report remarks on the "hints of history," in this piece. But I disagree somewhat that "Edward Norton plays the leader of a fascist army reminiscent of the Nazis in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel." That caption falls under the following picture.

Granted, the thuggish "Zigzag Division" is meant to look like SS--in a humorous combination with the pink.

But the gray uniforms are an imitation of Austrian soldiers of the First World War. I'm not sure just what designer Milena Canonero had in mind, but I can't resist comparing with Jozef Lada's illustrations for The Good Soldier Švejk.

Another image from GBH for comparison. Credit: Fox Searchlight

This 1921 novel was author Jaroslav Hašek's dark comedy about WWI. Švejk (pronounced shvake, rhymes with 'shake'), a good-natured, beer-swigging bumpkin is conscripted to fight for Austria-Hungary. Hašek satirizes that fact that the Czechs were part of this empire, but most felt little loyalty to it. He also pokes fun at authoritarianism and Austrian officers' disdain for the Czechs--"The entire Czech nation is a band of malingerers," says one. Švejk takes a passive-aggressive response, following orders literally to the point of driving superiors crazy. Czechs, long under Austrian domination, had adapted such practices as a means of survival, and Švejk quickly became the national personification of their nature.

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The Galloping Gypsy Guide to "Grand Budapest Hotel"

17/2/2015

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Tony Revolori as Young Zero Moustafa (l), Ralph Fiennes as Monseiur Gustave H. Credit: Fox Searchlight

Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, at this writing poised to win a major Oscar or two, is all about memory, history and nostalgia. Here's my take on the film's European background, with related images from last summer’s trip to Central Europe--and a minimum of spoilers!

Żubrówka, Polish bison grass vodka, as proudly displayed by my Hungarian bartender.

The film opens in “the former Republic of Zubrowka,” which could suggest any of Austria-Hungary’s successor states. Towards the end of Grand Budapest, Zubrowka is annexed (like the rump Austrian Republic in 1937). The name comes from a Polish bison grass vodka, Żubrówka, and is doubtless a bit of playfulness on Anderson’s part, much like the currency unit “klubeck.” (For a look at socialist-era furniture that smacks of the Grand Budapest’s lobby, see this earlier post.)

Austria-Hungaria, the multilingual state from which at least two "Zubrowkas" emerged: Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Zubrowka, viewers are told, was “once the seat of an empire,” and the film, “inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig,” could only be referring to one historical state. In the preface to his memoir The World of Yesterday, Zweig writes languidly, “I was born in 1881 in a large and powerful empire, in the monarchy of the Habsburgs, but one cannot find it on the map: it has been washed away without a trace.” The author describes his youth in this land – Vienna in particular, and the various ethnic influences on its culture – his travels in other countries, the outbreak of World War I, seeing the last emperor exiled at the end of that war, and the events leading up to the rise of National Socialism and World War II. Zweig, Jewish and without citizenship, living in Brazil as he completed the book in 1942, particularly lamented the demise of the multinational state of his birth.

Vienna IS time travel!

Hence the nostalgic quality of the film. Wes Anderson’s “Young Author” – who at the end of the film departs for South America - represents Zweig to some degree, as does the concierge, Monsieur Gustave H. “I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it. But I will say he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace,” says Young Author of M. Gustave. The elderly former lobby boy, echoing the sentiments of Zweig on what had happened to the Europe of his youth, says, “There are still faint glimmers of civilization in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. [M. Gustave] was one of them.”

The sad end to the story: Zweig was so distraught by his beloved Europe's descent into barbarity that, after completing his World of Yesterday manuscript and mailing it to his publisher in February 1942, that he and his wife committed suicide by an overdose of barbiturates. They were found several days later, holding hands in bed.

For a fun look at the fictional world of Zubrowka by the film's creators, have a look at http://www.akademiezubrowka.com/.

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Galloping Gypsy Loses his Guitar, or "My German Oral Proficiency Exam"

11/2/2015

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I stand for a half-hour in the July swelter of Italy to buy the Trieste-Vienna ticket. At least I can relax after this—just one transfer.

But when I finally get to the window, the schoolmarm-ish clerk, dark-brown hair in a bun, eyes me over her reading glasses as if I haven’t done my homework. “You have to take a bus from Udine to the Austrian border town of Villach, then board a second train.”

“But all the internet timetables indicate a direct train.”

“Well, the bus is owned by Austrian State Railways, so it’s the same.”

Sure, ironclad logic. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

When I arrive in Udine, there’s no indication where I’m supposed to catch the bus, no personnel on the train platform to ask. I consult a snack bar owner, communicating in gestures, rudimentary English and crude Italian.

I trudge two blocks with my thirty-pound backpack, computer case and, most important of all, my guitar. My companion, “Emilia.” Classical Yamaha with built-in tuner. The nylon strings give her the warmth I want for Gypsy music. Got her two months ago for this trip. Spent an extra hundred-fifty on the sturdy, TSA-approved black case to keep her in pristine condition.

In front of the bus station, Croats, Germans and Italians crowd around a concrete island, searching for a posted schedule that mentions Villach. Eventually we all agree the bus has to stop somewhere within sight, and it can’t possibly leave us all behind.

A rumor circulates that it’s an hour late, and we passengers start lounging on the dusty steps to the station entrance. I chat with a Mexican, a tenor studying in Bologna, now travelling to his next appearance in Cracow. An opera singer—must be a good omen. I have him take a picture of me, the Galloping Gypsy, “riding” the guitar case like a horse.

When the bus finally arrives, the driver starts stowing luggage in the compartment underneath, but he’s not giving out claim tickets. I really have no choice but to trust Emilia to Austrian State Railways.

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Grand Budapest Hotel & Retro Style

7/2/2015

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Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel is replete with furnishings from bygone eras. The socialist-era scenes - when the hotel was taken over by the state - strike me as accurate representations of hotels of that era and bring me back to the days in the early 1990s in Czechoslovakia when I saw that stuff everywhere.

But it's only been in the past few years that I've started taking photos. It used to seem so cheesy, but now it's disappearing rapidly as hotels in particular are anxious to remodel--and up their prices accordingly. (You know, less leg room in economy class, but, well, we don't really cater to them anymore--same phenomenon even in old East Bloc tourism.) So I'm starting to miss even the shabbier decorations. And maybe even a few hotels are, too. About five years ago, I noticed that one Bratislava commie-era monolith actually boasted of its retro suites. Doubtless Grand Budapest will have some decorators rethinking things. So here, then, are a few examples of actual formerly socialist countries with some comparison to GBH. (I'll doubtless add a few once I find them in my collection.)

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Czardas Princess in Donetsk

6/2/2015

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The Emmerich Kálmán operetta premiered in war-time Austria-Hungary a century ago, in November 2015. Poignantly, it is being performed in Donetsk now, as artillery fire echoes in the distance. “In the theater, there is a rule that, even in war, performances should continue,” as an official at the opera is quoted in Wednesday's New York Times. Actually, Czardas Princess, called Sylva in Russian, is a perennial favorite in the former Soviet Union, thanks largely to a 1944 film, so it runs frequently.

The other thing I couldn't help noticing, in the Times article, is how much this pic reminds me of something out of Grand Budapest Hotel. It's not a lobby boy, however, just a cast member in an Austro-Hungarian uniform.

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

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The Liberation of Auschwitz - at 70 & 50

2/2/2015

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I'd like to add an experience of my own to coverage of the commemoration at Auschwitz Jan. 27th. I made the journey (from Slovakia, where I lived at the time) to be there for the 50th anniversary. I had to change trains several times on the arduous overnight journey - during which I slept not a wink. When I arrived at the camp, it was bitter cold and windy with just a few flurries to add to the bleakness of the scene: the last stop on the rail line, the concrete posts which once held the barbed wire.

Numerous European heads of state attended, including Lech Wałęsa and Václav Havel. But the most important guests were the survivors, among them Elie Wiesel (read his speech here). After the main event, I joined the ordinary folks who wandered through the camp as former prisoners identified the barracks they had slept in and described the random role calls and other harsh and demeaning routines and conditions.

This year, 300 survivors attended, most of whom are now about 80. These last witness will not be with us much longer, and I'm so glad I attended when I did.

See original coverage of the event 20 years ago here, and the recollections of a U.S. diplomat who attended here.

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Congratulations, Grand Budapest! (& more commentary on the movie)

The Galloping Gypsy Guide to "Grand Budapest Hotel"

Galloping Gypsy Loses his Guitar, or "My German Oral Proficiency Exam"

Grand Budapest Hotel & Retro Style

Czardas Princess in Donetsk

The Liberation of Auschwitz - at 70 & 50

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