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Review of The Grand Budapest Hotel (Alexandre Desplat)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you loved Alexandre Desplat's totally irreverent treatment of European musical stereotypes in the film and are willing to chance an encounter with that hilariously insane parody music on album.

Avoid it... if you believe you may have the genetic predisposition towards a mental disorder, because this score's album could substantially accelerate the development of any brain disease.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Grand Budapest Hotel: (Alexandre Desplat) You can count on writer and director Wes Anderson to conjure some of the most bizarre, hairbrained comedies in the movie industry, and 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel is no less a frenzied character study. Set in the fictitious European alpine country of Zubrowka during the 1930's (with portions set in the 1960's and 1980's), the plot tells of a convoluted collection of characters fighting over wealth, prestige, and the fate of the titular hotel, with all the awkward interactions and deaths you would come to expect from a caper and farce worthy of the kind of supporting cast that Anderson assembles for the project (you have to see the full cast list to really appreciate it). The carefree attitude and genuinely funny characters of this murder mystery, along with the pilfering of countless stereotypes of European culture, catapulted The Grand Budapest Hotel to endless acclaim from critics and numerous major nominations from awards bodies, not to mention a substantial fiscal return confirming the viability of Anderson's wacky sense of humor. With so many characters tearing through this blast of an ensemble cast story, as well as the indistinct setting of the hotel itself, the music for the film must not have been something really all that intuitive at the outset. And yet, Anderson turned to his now regular collaborator, Alexandre Desplat, to search out and destroy all decency that any European musical stereotype might have had. Desplat was in the midst of a fantastic range of production in 2014 that took him from grandiose adventure to introspective thriller within the same year, and there may be some temptation for film music collectors to look towards the just preceding The Monuments Men for some guidance regarding The Grand Budapest Hotel. That would be a colossal mistake, because the latter score is truly unlike anything film music has heard in years, more than justifying the score's nominations for a BAFTA and Academy Award. Desplat clearly withheld nothing in his attempt to annihilate any Central European "sound" he could get a hold of, yielding a score that is so overwhelmingly saturated with every stereotypical instrumental tone from the region that the result is truly mind-boggling. Such shameless outrage is instantly memorable in both the best and worst of ways, failing to recall many connections to past film music (outside of some vintage Ennio Morricone Western tones when there's travel involved in a cue) but retaining so many basic mannerisms of Desplat himself that you can easily place it in his own career.

Whether you like it or not, forgetting it will present immense challenges. Desplat's approach to The Grand Budapest Hotel was this: take a small orchestral ensemble and augment it with a ridiculous quantity of specialty instruments from the region, including sometimes overblown numbers of balalaikas, cimbaloms, organs, Alpen horns, zithers, Gregorian chanters, and yodelers. Add more generic, but equally odd whistlers, glockenspiels, tambourines, tolling chimes, solo bassoons, beefy low brass, prominent timpani, an incessant snare, and a variety of other contributors of sonic uniqueness (including almost anything you can think of that can by plucked or precisely struck) and you have a palette that perfectly suits the wacky notion that there was this comical place called Zubrowka. More important than the instrumentation is the rhythmic flare typical to Desplat's writing, these prancing rhythms the single defining key of this work. It doesn't matter if there's a deep moment of reflection or a senseless killing on screen, Desplat will tap away at this score's urgent underlying rhythm. This connective tissue of the music joins with Desplat's main theme for the work for endless repetition of the same general pacing and progressions. Maintaining just one major theme for the whole film is wise (could you imagine how messy a complicated leitmotif attempt would have been?) and Desplat smartly takes that idea and its rhythmic base and simply alters its instrumentation and demeanor to represent each character. To say that the result is schizophrenic is tempting, but you'd be amazed how the maintenance of the same theme really forgives the instrumental wildness. It could make you insane, however, on album, and that's where this score suffers from most of its problems. The nature of the comedy requires that each silly cue be short and succinct, so you'll risk some whiplash trying to follow the main theme through its incarnations. You do get some consistency in the travel cues, "Daylight Express to Lutz" and "Night Train to Nebelsbad" (the Morricone connections), and the monastery-related and subsequent war cues that grow out of the travel version of the theme in "Canto at Gabelmeister's Peak" and "A Troops Barracks (Requiem for The Grand Budapest)." These cues are a bit longer, and you could find some lasting enjoyment from these and the choral, vaguely Nino Rota-like death variant of the theme in "A Prayer for Madame D" and "The Family Desgoffe Und Taxis." Mixed into the album's presentation are several source pieces that fit nicely with Desplat's original material. Overall, this smirk-inducing score has much to love and much to loathe, and it is the type of work that really has to be appreciated in context to avoid possible acceleration of any mental disorders you might be predisposed to having.

• Music as Written for the Film: ****
• Music as Heard on Album: **
• Overall: ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 59:49

• 1. s'Rothe-Zauerli - performed by Ose Schuppel (1:12) • 2. The Alpine Sudetenwaltz (0:36) • 3. Mr. Moustafa (3:03) • 4. Overture: M. Gustave H (0:30) • 5. A Prayer for Madame D (1:20) • 6. The New Lobby Boy (2:17) • 7. Concerto for Lute and Plucked Strings I. Moderato - performed by the DZO Chamber Orchestra (2:52) • 8. Daylight Express to Lutz (2:16) • 9. Schloss Lutz Overture (0:32) • 10. The Family Desgoffe und Taxis (1:49) • 11. Last Will and Testament (2:16) • 12. Up the Stairs/Down the Hall (0:27) • 13. Night Train to Nebelsbad (1:44) • 14. The Lutz Police Militia (0:49) • 15. Check Point 19 Criminal Internment Camp Overture (0:11) • 16. The Linden Tree - performed by the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra (2:24) • 17. J.G. Jopling, Private Inquiry Agent (1:28) • 18. A Dash of Salt (Ludwig's Theme) (1:32) • 19. The Cold-Blooded Murder of Deputy Vilmos Kovacs (2:47) • 20. Escape Concerto (2:12) • 21. The War (Zero's Theme) (1:01) • 22. No Safe-House (1:32) • 23. The Society of the Crossed Keys (2:21) • 24. M. Ivan (1:15) • 25. Lot 117 (0:30) • 26. Third Class Carriage (1:20) • 27. Canto at Gabelmeister's Peak (5:35) • 28. A Troops Barracks (Requiem for the Grand Budapest) (5:18) • 29. Cleared of All Charges (1:10) • 30. The Mystical Union (1:26) • 31. Kamarinskaya - performed by the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra (2:43) • 32. Traditional Arrangement: Moonshine (3:21)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a list of performers and a note from the director about the score.

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