Recently we watched Asteroid City together and loved it. It's not for everyone, including my wife Amy and our oldest Beatrice. But it is for Bryce and I. She doesn't even know all the actors who were in it like I do, and there were many. This is true for most Wes Anderson films.
I kept telling her throughout the movie, "This is so weird and good." And she wholeheartedly agreed.
Was it a play about a movie, or a movie about a play? Was it a retro satirical look at the 1950's UFO fears? Was it ultimately about dealing with one's own mortality and grieving about death? Who the heck knows. We really didn't, and while the ratings weren't great for it, you like what you like, and we liked.
"Every frame of the movie is like a work of art, don't you think?" I said to Bryce.
"Yes," she agreed again. "I love it!"
In fact, even when we lost the threads of story watching the film, it didn't matter, because it was art for us, every shot a vividly detailed still-life painting storybook.
Years ago our kids watched Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on Roald Dahl's book of the same name. They both loved it, and Bryce realized now it was another Wes Anderson film.
The other night Bryce and I watched Isle of Dogs, another one she'd watched before and loved. Again, the style of Wes's storytelling, whether animated or live action, is fascinating. Now, we have a list of his movies we're going to watch, some I've already seen and some I haven't, including Bottle Rocket, his first movie.
That will be the fun part, watching more of these movies with Bryce (although maybe not Rushmore, Mom said). But more than that, us watching both Bryce and Beatrice grow up has been a rich tapestry of moving storybook art, frame by frame, just like a Wes Anderson film. Each of moment of their lives vivid and colorful, still-life pictures over the years rushing by in succession creating movement, sound, and memories -- happy and sad and all in between. These we can watch together over and over and over again.
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