You do not need to be a doctor of film theory to realize that Wes Anderson has a very distinctive visual style.
The presence of refined formalism reflected in a well-planned range of colors, lines and shapes. He is especially known for his symmetrical compositions in which the actor is always in the exact geometric center of the frame, but this does not mean that the equally important action that takes place in its center does not happen on the edges of the frame.
On the contrary, Anderson asks us to percipate the whole composition, because on the periphery, from where his characters come from, the most important human interactions happen. Anderson's style is also very self-reflective, drawing attention to the very act of observation.
Also in his films there is a connection that he is trying to establish between the analogue film and painting. The use of miniatures and matte backgrounds combines painting and perceptual tricks. Also, Anderson uses the basic color palette for coloring the entire film from objects, textures, fabrics and the whole environment so that we have the feeling that we are looking at a live canvas.
In the movie 'Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', Anderson uses the old Ektachrome reversal film,
(photographic film that can be processed to produce a positive transparent image for direct projection, rather than a negative for printing), in order to get a more contrasting and more grainy feel of the film.
What Anderson manages to get a magically realistic world that returns everyone in childhood, with a dose of nostalgia.
His characters are outsiders who are either struggling with the reassurance they have grown up or have a longing for an irreversible past, while thematically his films represent something the critics called "absurdness meditation over modern life".
"Life Aquantic with Steve Zissou" is Anderson's fourth film and was shot in 2004. The film begins with the scene of the premiere of the film's main protagonist, Bill Murray, the famous director who has become famous for documentaries about the oceans, in spite of superficial and sloppy knowledge of the subject. Unfortunately, the film shown follows the death of a crew member described by Zissou on conference as "violent death by Jaguar-shark" and swore to catch that rare beast. In his adventure he will be attached to, except his crew, his ex-wife, Eleanor, his faithful Assistant Klaus, journalist Jane and his possible son Ned.
Despite this extremely strange setting that resembles the Moby Dick story on psychedelic substances and almost no existence of a typical narrative, this story actually works very well.
The Jaguar-shark, the object of Zissou's revenge, turns out to exist and it's a creature which you should admire and not destroy it. The researchers aim to see a world that is bigger than their own and discover what is unknown. The message was in front of us all the time, Anderson asks us to "appreciate it, observe, and you will become participants of this realistic magic. "
But, like in every film of Wes Anderson, brilliance does not lie in the narrative, but in his obsession with every detail in the film- from the incredible ship of Belafonte, the crew which is dressed in identical costumes, a typographic font (Futura Bold) applied to any texts in a movie.
"Belafonte" is essentially one of the characters in the film, with its funny appearance, it reflects the spirit of the whole journey. So when the film's pre-production phase has just begun to search for the unique style and shape of the ship, Mark Friedberg, film-maker, said:
"The search for the boat itself was quite an adventure. Wes was very concrete in what kind of ship is going to be: retro, dated from the period of the second world work, a miner of about 50 meters in length and to some extent resembling Custo Calypso."
After several months of searching they managed to find such a ship in South Africa, who was then transferred to Rome. This ship is kept in its original condition, intact, for a few introductory sequences, but was later developed to look like an oceanographic research vessel with scenes and deck decorations in bright colors. In the meantime, another similar boat was dismantled for the set in the studio.
"When we came to work on the interior of the ship, we wanted to conjure up the protagonist Zissou,
a man who is sure where he goes. When we started, we were not sure if this was the story that was looking for realistic approach or a stylized fairy tale, but the answer was that the film was all that ''.
From the very beginning, Wes Anderson knew that he wanted the audience to first see "Belafonte" in one type of cross-section. The ship was supposed to be split to reveal the interior to the audience, while the cameras would move in a straight line linearly from room to room in long recruits.
In the studio part of the shooting, "Belafonte" was built on three floors in the famous Italian Cinecitta Studios. Italy was selected, as Fridberg himself stated "because it is on the water, because all of Felini's films were recorded in Cinecity and because they have that Mediterranean island's sensibility that we were looking for. "
The director's decision to show the jaguar-shark animated and leave this to the famous Henry
Selick, a man behind films such as the Nightmare Before Christmas and Coroline, may have been just a chir, but it's an important part of the movie. Selick said that Anderson had a very clear idea of how the sea world looks: "For example, for sugar crabs, Anderson literally wanted to be in the color of sweets, so I brought him whole catalogs of candies from which he selected the palette. "
All crew members wear identical light blue uniforms, red caps and identical '' Zissou '' adidas shoes.
Except it visually looks charming and completely goofy, costume is actually a significant element in the film- design establishes a sense of unity and team work. Light blue is the color of the ocean, slightly brighter than the official navy uniform, and signify the research nature of the team Zissou. The fact that everyone has identical costumes is one of the most important aspects of the film. Namely, Steve Zissou is the central figure of the film, and the whole crew leaves their own personal problems and unites in his quest for vengeance. This homogeneity of characters actually adds to their individuality, because the director must rely on their unique personality in order to convey to the audience the identity of the actors.
The film is certainly slow and very weird and it takes a lot of patience to find the right value, but for those who are willing to analyze each image, knows that this is worth the patience.
Harsher critics might say that Anderson's films "triumph over style, full of allusions which lead to anywhere, "but we could freely say that such a comment only shows that the observer did not accept almost children's moral lessons with a complex real-fairy world which took place before him.