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The Grand Budapest Hotel makes its way on to Blu-ray and DVD, with a bold instruction at the start of the film: “PLEASE SET YOUR MONITOR TO 16X9”. You’ll see why in due course.
The film involves the theft of a priceless painting, a wealthy, 84-year-old dowager (Tilda Swinton) who dies which leads to a will that’s bound to be contested by various members of her family, plus Willem Dafoe as a violent thug who’ll sort out the contesting of the will by his own terms. There are also lots of little things to make you chuckle as the film plays out. For example, war breaks out in Eastern Europe, and Anderson doesn’t exactly go with the enemies as Nazi SS members, but instead with ZZ as their logo. There’s also the constant of made-up town names, such as Lutz in Budapest, and I saw in it what Mark Kermode referred to in his review, that Anderson gets the cast to act as if they’re animated, since this results in a wonderfully wacky performance from Edward Norton as Henckels, leader of the Lutz Military Police.
The look of the hotel is sumptuous and really should at least get an Oscar nomination for set design, but given its March release, it depends how far back the voters will look when it comes to casting their nominations. Anderson’s films have had Oscar nominations before, but, unfortunately, it’s never led to a win.
Overall, I don’t want to say too much about it as it’s best to be presented with the basics and then enjoy as the story unfolds, but The Grand Budapest Hotel is a total delight almost completely from start to finish. Ralph Fiennes is perfect in his role as hotel owner M. Gustave and the film only sags a little when he’s not the main focus, although for the purposes of the story we do need to see what the other characters are up to from time to time, and this features an incredible cast all giving great performances, including Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan and Léa Seydoux.
Usually, Wes Anderson films in 2.35:1 Anamorphic Panavision, which has a curved look to the edges of the screen, but his last cinematic outing, Moonrise Kingdom, was shot in 1.85:1. That film really didn’t work for me and, quite frankly, bored me. I wondered whether it was me trying to get used to Anderson’s change in format, but with The Grand Budapest Hotel, the ratios are all over the place, primarily shooting in the age-old 1.37 Academy ratio for the bulk of the proceedings, presumably given that it’s set in 1932.
We do, indeed, get some scenes shot in 2.35:1, albeit Anamorphic Technovision (although Technovision was bought out by Panavision in 2004), those involving F. Murray Abraham and Jude Law, which are peppered throughout, and also some scenes in a slightly-windowboxed 1.85:1 with Tom Wilkinson as an author, and their relevance will be revealed when you watch the film.
Knowing that there were several ratios to play out during The Grand Budapest Hotel, before I saw it, I expected the full height 2.35:1 frame to be employed in the cinema for those scenes, with the smaller ratios cast within. This isn’t the case, so don’t panic when the cinema curtains don’t open up further when the film is about to start. I could see that being the case for when the film comes to Blu-ray and DVD, since you won’t want to be watching the 1.37:1 scenes in a tiny window on your TV, since the 2.35:1 scenes will be seen within a 1.85:1 frame anyway. However, while it would’ve been nice to see the wider shots in their full glory on the big screen, I can see that Anderson didn’t want to have too dramatic a change when they pop up during the film.
Oh, and there’s a little something towards the end of the closing credits if you stay for them. And why wouldn’t you? The music is great and all you’re going to achieve by leaving five minutes early is getting back to your home five minutes early, where you probably spend enough time already.
Go to page 2 for a look at the presentation and the extras.
The film is presented in the original widescreen ratios… of which there are a variety, and in 1080p high definition and it brings the wonderful and sumptuous hotel set to life perfectly. It was a treat at the cinema, and is the same again on Blu-ray. I’m watching on a Panasonic 50″ Plasma TV.
The sound is in DTS HD 5.1 and is mostly a dialogue- and ambience-led piece. It’s not a SFX extravaganza, but it delivers what it needs to perfectly.
The extras are as follows and they’re all in HD. They’re all worth a watch, but they do feel very short and could’ve been expanded upon:
- Bill Murray Tours The Town (4:17): A brief piece, but we get a quick look round the Polish area where they’re filming, although a lot of it was also shot in Germany.
- Vignettes (9:00): Three of them here, starting with the Kunstmuseum Zubrowka Lecture, with selections from the writings of Stefan Zweig with his “The Society of The Crossed Keys”, the inspiration for The Grand Budapest Hotel, and told by Tom Wilkinson as the author.
Then Bill Murray is quizzed about The Society of The Crossed Keys, one of the most efficient intelligence agencies of the world.
And finally, how to make those Mendl cakes in the film in…. erm… Mendl’s Secret Recipe.
All of these pieces are done in a similar quick-cut style to the film.
- The Making of The Grand Budapest Hotel (18:08): Chat with cast and crew members, mixed in with clips from the film. I’m surprised this wasn’t put at the start of the extras.
However, it looks at the story, the cast, the design of the hotel (which was converted from an old shopping mall) and the director Wes Anderson, and how inspiring he is, as well as his choice of different widescreen aspect ratios.
- Cast (3:24): Another short piece looking at the cast.
- Wes Anderson (3:46): And another… yes, you get the idea.
- Stills gallery (3:25): 40 images in total, at five seconds per image (plus a closing caption)
- Trailer (2:26): Mostly in 4:3, just like the film.
- Audio descriptive track: Does what it says on the tin.
There are subtitles and languages in quite a few apiece. However, if you just glance at the box, all you’ll see is “English” only. What the Fox??
Languages spoken re English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Turkish.
Subtitles are available in English for the deaf and hard of hearing, French, Spanish, Dutch, Brazillian Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian.
The problem with identifying all of these, is that I can’t access them to flick through them while the film is playing, oddly enough, so I’m rather stuck with trying to figure out what they say in the menu, by selecting ones I couldn’t work out, then playing the film so I can bring up the Blu-ray player’s menu to see what language it is (where the first three letters of the name is given).
Chapters are plentiful, which is a rarity these days, as there are 32 across the 100-minute running time. Whoever was in charge of that here should do them for ALL Blu-rays and DVDs!
The menu is a static, suitably minimalist affair, with the main theme, S’Rothe Zäuerli’s Öse Schuppel playing in the background.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
9 10 10 5 |
| OVERALL | 8.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 100 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Cat.no.: 5758007001
Year: 2014
Released: July 7th 2014
Chapters: 11
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English plus 8 additional languages
Subtitles: English plus 25 additional languages
Format: 1.37:1, 1.85:1, 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Technovision)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Wes Anderson
Producers: Wes Anderson, Jeremy Dawson, Steven M. Rales and Scott Rudin
Screenplay/Story: Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness (inspired by the works of Stefan Zweig)
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
M. Gustave: Ralph Fiennes
Zero: Tony Revolori
Mr. Moustafa: F. Murray Abraham
Serge X.: Mathieu Amalric
Dmitri: Adrien Brody
Jopling: Willem Dafoe
Deputy Kovacs: Jeff Goldblum
Ludwig: Harvey Keitel
Young Writer: Jude Law
M. Ivan: Bill Murray
Henckels: Edward Norton
Agatha: Saoirse Ronan
M. Jean: Jason Schwartzman
Clotilde: Léa Seydoux
Madame D.: Tilda Swinton
Author: Tom Wilkinson
M. Chuck: Owen Wilson
Mr. Mosher: Larry Pine
Serge’s Sister: Giselda Volodi
Pinky: Florian Lukas
Wolf: Karl Markovics
Gunther: Volker ‘Zack’ Michalowski
Lieutenant: Neal Huff
M. Martin: Bob Balaban
M. Robin: Fisher Stevens
M. Georges: Wally Wolodarsky
M. Dino: Waris Ahluwalia
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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