The French Dispatch (2021) - Wes Anderson

​A deeply humanist work shrouded in Anderson's signature artifice, The French Dispatch features what is perhaps his most extravagant and accomplished aesthetic yet beneath it's general playfulness and irresistible charm lies one of the filmmakers most thematically incisive efforts, navigating social, personal, and political arenas to deliver a rather singular ode to the written word. To say the French Dispatch is a celebration of journalism is accurate but not particularly precise, as what Anderson has really crafted through this narrative tableau is an ode to observation and expression, encapsulating quite wonderfully how personal documentation, experience, and observation often helps codify our collective understanding of the past which may not be so clear in the present. It's so meticulous one may find it to lack emotional resolve but I can't particularly relate as I found it to be deeply effective on an emotional level. Life is chaos, the divides which exist are plentiful, and what connects all these characters is their shared mode of expression as they attempt to make sense of a nonsensical world.