
And Gustave’s connoisseurs.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is centered around two wills and testaments. One of these is the McGuffin of the film, which sets off the comically turbulent action. It’s not a physical object, but it is essential to the film’s backstory or, more accurately, its front story. The surprising outcomes of the 1932 drama are what explain the events in the three subsequent time frames. First, a desperate search for a legal document is what causes trouble. Second, keeping a promise is the foundation of a great legend and legacy.
Here, the words spoken in friendship or love, the recognition of similar souls in terms of refinement, judgment, dignity, self-control, aesthetic taste, and the desire to achieve it appear at the core of a moral policy that transcends historical events and accidents. The story of the restored grandeur of an old hotel, which is perpetuated through a book, is also a story of personal nobility – a strict and self-imposed code that, despite historically terrifying and cataclysmic trouble, proves to be a rock steadfast in decency. This tradition is then preserved and perpetuated through art: “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Anderson’s closest attempt at a creed, a discourse on principle.