Wes Anderson’s Short Film Series Finds Freedom in Artifice
The four Roald Dahl adaptations break down the mechanics of storytelling to explore new boundaries of imagination
Over the past few years, Wes Anderson's works have been concerned with storytelling and its ethical, aesthetic, and social capacities. Perhaps this new facet of his work can be attributed to his emergence into the heart of the mainstream, corresponding with his style of storytelling becoming increasingly evaluated by larger audiences. Both The French Dispatch and Asteroid City pose existential ethical dilemmas about the roles of storytellers interacting with their environments and audiences, and both examine the mechanics of Anderson’s own narrative process and reflect on the authenticity of his own style. His recent series of shorts, based on selected stories by Roald Dahl, tackle the dynamics of creator-audience relationships in an expressive realm previously unexplored by Anderson. If The French Dispatch dissected the nature of storytelling, and Asteroid City examined the integrity of it, this new series of shorts digs deep into the raw purpose and mechanics of storytelling with an unsettling and intense brutality that still feels somehow suitable to accompany a cup of tea at bedtime.
The four short films, released in sequence by Netflix, each employ the same ensemble cast, with Ralph Fiennes taking on the role of Dahl himself along with other characters. Each film is structured as if it were a play, with hand-painted sets and visual illusions that don’t try to hide themselves. This theatrical presentation pokes fun at the anti-naturalism fundamental to Anderson’s aesthetic, demanding that the audience suspend their disbelief to an unusual degree.
The characters in each film exist as the narrators of their own stories, with Dahl providing occasional interjections as the narratives unfold. Characters present their own dialogue in the third person and actively rearrange the scenery that frames their world, simultaneously taking the position of their character and assuming a sense of authorial responsibility over their story. This convolution of each character’s purpose demands a high level of audience attentiveness as the narratives unfold.
The most successful of the four shorts is The Swan, in which two bullies pursue a small boy. This story has a hurried confinement that suits the rapid fire eloquence of Anderson’s imagination of Dahl, cleverly elaborated by Rupert Friend’s role as the boy’s grown-up self recounting a memory. Friend takes on all the speaking parts of the nail-biting back-and-forth between the boy and his bullies, crafting a surreal monologue that mixes memory with the present. The Swan is far more brutal and harrowing than Anderson usually allows, and also surrealistically minimal, interacting with Anderson’s own style in an approximately negative space.
One could argue that layers of metatext, re-use of actors, and exposing the mechanics of the movie all strip Anderson’s style of the little humanity it had in the first place; that he has completely surrendered to artifice and succumbed to a style where visual appeal takes priority over everything else. I might even agree, to an extent: Anderson’s immaculate tableaus can be suffocating, but only when he seems dependent on them. In the first short film, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Anderson’s story feels trapped in its own conceit, noticeably rigid and without the recognition of imagination that the others in the series display.
However, despite the rigidity of the first (and longest) short film, the rest of this series has an exhilarating vulnerability so rarely achieved in so short a runtime. Despite the free-rein of his camera, much of Anderson’s storytelling reserves itself for the imagination, simultaneously bringing the whimsy of Dahl to life while still never confining itself solely to the images on screen. Long monologues and imaginary props never interrupt the flow of action -- instead, they expand the limits of it, best exemplified in The Ratcatcher, the third film of the series. Anderson gives the audience a place in the storytelling process, as we must supplement imaginary props and monologued violence with interpretations of our own.
While so many small additions (rolling sets and silent stagehands) give these short films a distinctive sense of life, perhaps the most important touch is the inclusion of Dahl as a narrator. Dahl addresses the audience directly from a cozy room bathed in pastels; the mundane hums of his home underscoring his narration. His introductions and interjections throughout each film make the stories alive, allowing for the feeling that each story is not predetermined but actively unfolding at the whims of the storyteller’s imagination, counterbalancing the waxwork to which Anderson’s characters sometimes feel chained.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Ratcatcher, and Poison were released from September 27-30 and are currently streaming on Netflix.
I really appreciate that Anderson took on Dahl and hope he continues to produce shorts (Dahl or otherwise). Lots of potential.
Watched The Rat Catcher tonight on your recommendation. Quite delightful and a good length at 17 minutes (don’t think this style of storytelling with one actor doing the he-said-she-said parts of a story’s narration would work in a longer form).
Couldn’t find the other 3 and didn’t have their titles handy. Netflix’s discoverability is terrible.
Could have sworn I was a fan of Anderson’s first feature film, Bottle Rocket, with the fresh young Wilson brothers, but looking at the trailer today I’m no longer sure. Now looks like the work of a completely different director.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJPQ-NnjZR0