The Phoenician Scheme Critique

Visual / Formal Language

As a Wes Anderson movie. The framing was absolutely stunning. Every shot had some sort of symmetry happening in it. As if someone had animated a painting. The camera movement was basically nonexistent for the entire film. Except during the end when there was a fight scene and the camera started following the struggling faces of the characters. Other than that, there were fast movements between shots every now and then. The editing was mildly fast, and very abrupt. This makes sense since most shots were taken from a static perspective. There isn't much movement to be done, and if the movement was absolutely necessary, then a quick cut was done to the thing that needed focus and back to the main event. The lighting and contrast was very soft. Many hot temperatured colors and pastel palettes were used for the rooms and in the outfits. The general color grading of the movie was slightly yellowish and cooled down for the climax of the movie. This adds to the feeling of the movie looking like a painting.

Because of the extremely symmetrical shots, Wes Anderson had a lot of fun arranging the characters in the shots. Shots are taken statically, so Wes is allowed to move characters into the shot dynamically, as if we were watching a stage play live. To expound on this, Wes deliberately places the lens of the camera higher than where the characters eyes are. Placing the camera at $5',6"$ above the ground, makes the camera's perspective look like that of the average person's height. Putting it slightly above or below that can convey different perspectives, for example that of a little kid's would be lower, an imposing/threatening perspective will be higher. Most of if not all of Wes's shots were placed consistently higher than the character's eye level, several feet above. With that difference, now the perspective isn't even human. So it looks more like the perspective you would have when viewing the characters from a seat inside a theater.

Sound & Music

Classical music and normal western sound effects were used in this movie, this is unsurprising. Most of the movie did not have music playing though, this is interesting. Sound effects were used frequently to convey tension. Throughout the movie, the sound of a drum played in the background. This gave the first scenes a feeling that the characters were preparing to go to battle. During the middle and climax of the movie, this then served to add tension. Specially during the tense dialogue scenes where Korda has to negotiate with his investors. I like how this is also a slight nudge towards the fact that Wes tends to use tempo and spaced repetition as a tool for storytelling. I did not notice many environmental sounds happening passively. There were occasions though, when a sound would happen in the background and its presence was immediately recognized by the characters. For example, during the plane scenes when assassination attempts were being executed.

As I mentioned, Wes uses rhythm a lot. Many times, the characters will execute a long, somewhat monotonous phrase but with perfect cadence. Fights seem choreographed like an actual dance following a rhythm. This was my first viewing of a Wes Anderson movie so I enjoyed this part a lot. The droning music throughout the movie made each scene keep a consistent rhythm. Imperceptible when you're watching the movie, but very noticeable when you zoom out and appreciate the entirety of the movie from afar.

Performance & Blocking

The quickest thing that comes to mind when it comes to facial expressions has to be the final fight between Korda and Uncle Nubar. During this scene, both characters are scowling at each other constantly and the cameras focus no this. During the moments of contact, the camera zooms in on their struggling faces, something that never happens during the rest of the movie. Further emphasizing their fight. The only other time a zoom happens on a character's face, albeit not as intense as during the fight, happens when Liesl is signing the contract to become Korda's daughter. Right after witnessing each assassination attempt, Korda would say the phrase: "Myself, I feel safe" and have the most relaxed body language and expression he could possibly muster. If a character did not have to move, then they did not move. Every character simply remained in the same spot where they started the shot. A good example of this was the very interesting placement of Korda, Liesl, Bjørn and the taxi driver right before meeting with the prince. Korda and Liesl were placed right in the forefront of the shot. Bjørn was around 10-20 feet behind them crouched looking at a dung beetle on the ground and the taxi driver was out of frame 30-40 feet to the right. Even while being shot at, Liesl and Korda did not move from their places. Liesl pulls out a dagger and Korda stands there perfectly calm. The phrases:

"Myself, I feel safe"

and the phrase:

"Who could lick who, or whom, I guess,"

were repeated frequently throughout the movie.

Philosophy & Themes

The main moral dilemma of the movie is that Korda wants to fill his life with material success and he also wants Liesl in his life. But Liesl clearly views Korda as an evil person, and slowly Korda starts realizing that many of the things he wants and does are against the views of the Christian god, God, that Liesl presents to him. He starts seeing visions every time he dies, which happens very frequently, and it's not until when he personally meets God that he becomes religious and asks Liesl for advice. Korda has to decide whether he will risk everything to have what he wants or if he will fulfill his happiness by living a quieter life, what Liesl ends up recommending. Korda clearly has lived all of his life conning people and getting away with it. When the movie starts, he views the people around him as simple pawns for him to control and use for his advantage. Everyone is disposable and Korda seems to experience the polar opposite of sonder . Even Liesl is viewed as a sort of "safety net" for Korda in case he dies, at the start of the movie.

This moral dilemma makes Korda want to do horrible things like human slavery, induce famines in nearby countries and Liesl is vehemently against all this. This puts Korda in a situation where he has to choose whether he wants to keep Liesl or if he wants to be a successful businessman, by inducing those horrors. Interestingly, Korda appears to be absolutely immortal throughout the movie. Hence why he is able to have visions when he "dies". At one point he is shot in the chest and recovers from it. There is something ironic from this since it seems a stack of bills might have absorbed a lot of the momentum of the bullet. But, the reality is that he was shot in the chest and lost lots of blood. Even then, Korda has a vision and simply comes back to life. This makes Korda overconfident about his abilities to survive, in my opinion, and dangerous situations like assassination attempts don't phase him. Hence the phrase: "Myself, I feel safe".

At the start of the movie, Korda is seen bathing while eating. His servants serve him whine while they perform some kind of surgery on his back and shoulders and remove what appears to be shrapnel and debris from the previous plane crash he was in. They set a bottle of wine in a bidet with ice. He does not acknowledge his servants at all. At the end of the movie, Korda is seen serving a plate of food to his servant and washing dishes, next to Liesl. The message here could not be clearer and the character growth was very satisfying to see. Korda is exploring what it means to be "right" or "wrong" through the lens of Liesl.

Micro‑Observations

Because this is a Wes Anderson movie, I tried paying attention to the cadence and rhythm at which things happened during scenes. For example, Wes sometimes lines up important words in a character's speech with certain rhythmic cues, but this was very hard to perceive. At the end of the movie I think I was starting to get the hang of it, but it still wasn't too simple. Also, I thought it was interesting Liesl was seen drinking hard liquor at the end of the movie (whiskey).

Cultural Context & Style

What sticks out the most in Wes Anderson movies is the framing and color choice. I do not see this frequently in other western films, though Wes makes western films. The characters, scenes, shots and cadence all have a sort of theatrical vibe to them. As if I'm in a theater watching the characters act these scenes out live. This is further carried by the use of cameras being placed slightly higher up than eye level. When characters retort at each other, their lines seem very deliberate and executed as if from a script, which they are. But this gives a tense fight between two characters a sort of comical feeling. This is very strange compared to what Hollywood usually does. This is a very unsensationalized take on what an Epic for Korda with Liesl could be.

Personal Reflection

My favorite part has to be at the start of the movie when Liesl is presented and the plan for what's about to happen in the next 60 minutes are laid out. Liesl is a nun, and a nun is a type of person for which "putting myself in their shoes" is not so simple. I was expecting that this would be a character that I would see try to bring righteousness and truth to Korda's life. However, it is quickly revealed that Liesl actually has a very reasonable and level-headed response to all of Korda's plan, it's evil. This juxtaposition between what I expected and what happened was subtle enough for me to not realize until further on in the movie when I found myself rooting for Liesl when she confronts Korda while signing the papers to become his daughter.

Connections

I have never seen something like this so there are not many connections to draw. His shots reminded me of Edward Hopper paintings .

Rating (not Quality — impact)

All scores out of 10.

Impact - 6

Story - 7

Characters - 8

Visuals - 10

Audio - 6

Enjoyment - 6

Total - 7.16

End of Film Entry

Enjoyable for the story and lovable characters, but sometimes hard to understand because of the very fast pace and very odd scene compositions, this movie was very enjoyable. This felt like a breath of fresh air.