Note that the scribe’s life may contain many amazing stories, but, often times it is a thankless job and many in the profession live and die in squalor. Such a reality would inspire anyone in their logical mind to abandon these artistic pursuits in favor of efforts that could be more profitable. Discouragement in this profession is as common as the cold before COVID highjacked the spotlight for all illnesses. “The French Dispatch” is a film that entails all the perils and perks of being within the journalistic profession and reminds those who proceed to write professionally not to cry like a XXXTentacion hook on a Lil’ Wayne single. Why? Because this is the life we chose.
One minute things are black and white, the next luminous full color with exaggerated hues to make neon auras appear around the characters in the most dazzling scenes. “The French Dispatch” is an anthology piece featuring a few short films narrated by the fictional authors that work at the Kansas editorial. In these tales the audience will find : romance for big cities & small towns, animated inserts, shoot outs, explosions, car chases, prison breaks – just about every highlight of genre films, only thrown together in one feature with bilingual conversations carried in French and English.
“The French Dispatch” is a celebration of life, not because it serves as an obituary to the fictional editor and the non-fictional writer’s that inspired the works in the film, but because of all the zany and quirky instances that occur throughout the film that seem larger than life, but really aren’t that far fetched when looked at from the punctuation mark of the run-on sentence some refer to as a lifetime. The players from Del Toro’s tortured artist/serial killer to Murray’s sporadic appearances as the editor and everyone in between are all at the top of their game and recognizable as dedicated actors who showed up to make another imprint in their respective filmographies. Not that “The French Dispatch” would get a ton of press as it is an artsy film, typical to bear the Searchlight banner. And with all the delays of it’s release this Wes Anderson ride is sure to have went under the radar of the late 2021 box office. But lack of recognition does not discount good art. An idea that “The French Dispatch” holds close to in a digital age that claims journalism is as dead as Nietschize’s idea of God.
The narratives are lengthy, the stories outlandish, the splicing of scenes and colors constantly keeping viewers on their toes … “The French Dispatch” is as grand as a film can ever be set up in the great state of Kansas without a baby being found in a cornfield throwing on a cape claiming to be a Man of Steel.
Score : 3/5
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