Article: https://thebestfckingyearsofyourlife.substack.com/p/the-exquisite-loneliness-of-the-grand

In The Grand Budapest Hotel, the eponymous hotel acts as an extravagant retirement home. At the onset of Part 1: M. Gustave, Madame D., a long-time hotel guest, leaves the hotel because of a premonition that she is in danger. She and M. Gustave bid farewell “I love you’s”; the next time she graces the screen, she is in a casket. While the events following her death—the controversial codicil granting M. Gustave ownership of the painting “Boy With Apple”—are arguably more important to the plot of the film, this brief interaction is a poignant revelation of M. Gustave’s loneliness. In fact, much of the ensemble leads lonely lives: M. Gustave devotes himself to the hotel [the article cleverly asserts that “[he] is the hotel” (Rebecca, 1)] and Zero and Agatha’s relatives are either deceased or unacknowledged.

Despite having an extensive, albeit dysfunctional, family, Madame D. also experiences profound loneliness. Her closest companion is M. Gustave, whose solitary nature comforted her in ways that her family never could (notably, she is only shown with her family in death). This mutual loneliness is elevated by a costuming choice in the film: M. Gustave and Zero’s vibrant uniforms contrast with the black-clad ceremony attendees. Like Madame D., they are outsiders—visually and emotionally alienated from those around them.

This contrast raises an important question: must a sanctuary designed to offer solace to the lonely be led by someone who intimately understands the depths of loneliness?

The article does an excellent job of deconstructing the dreamlike facade of the hotel and it skillfully teases out just how lonely everyone actually is. What distinguishes it from your standard psychoanalytic work are the insights it draws from interviews with Wes Anderson, which explore the film’s inspiration for using Caspar David Friedrich-adjacent scenery to make the outside world feel overwhelmingly large and the hotel guests feel overwhelmingly small. While there is nothing overtly “unusual” or “problematic” here, the article suggests that this is not merely an aesthetic choice, but a commentary on the inescapable reality and rise of fascism.

Lastly, the article addresses the unique and somewhat eerie influence of Stefan Zweig’s memoir The World of Yesterday on the film, in which Zweig reflects on a lost Europe. Unlike the latter’s idealized past, the film seems to recognize that its characters’ “nostalgia” is for an illusion of a genteel Europe. M. Gustave clings to old-world values of charm, civility, and decorum; yet, beyond his pastel palace, these values no longer exist. This awareness is echoed in M. Moustafa’s closing line about M. Gustave: “To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it” (Rebecca, 6).

Perhaps it is this outdated kindness that makes M. Gustave and the hotel so intriguing. However, not only do people misjudge his genuine desire to care for older women as a form of exploitation, but the women themselves see him as a vessel to escape the outside world, which, unlike the hotel, is not frozen in time. That is the loneliest truth of all.