This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
For anyone whose appetite for Wes Anderson was whetted — but not sated — by last month's SNL horror parody, the director has delivered a small appetizer before his upcoming film "The Grand Budapest Hotel."
The short film "Castello Cavalcanti" — posted to YouTube Wednesday — was made for Prada and is as "Wes Andersonian" as Wes Anderson gets: vintage music, long tracking shots, Jason Schwartzman.
Set in Italy in 1955, the film tells the story of a mustachioed race car driver (Schwartzman ) who crashes his bright red coupe in an impossibly picturesque village square. Naturally everyone speaks rapidly, sometimes in unison and in calm, declarative statements laden with existential meaning. Like I said, very Wes Anderson.
Schwartzman's character soon learns that the townspeople are his ancestors and eventually he makes a small but probably important choice.
It's a charming film that, much like "Hotel Chevalier" before "The Darjeeling Limited," shows how Wes Anderson's uber-stylized autuerism is well- (some might say best-) suited to punchy little short stories.
— Jim Dalrymple II