How Wes Anderson uses Asteroid City to explore deep emotions

Perhaps one of Anderson's greatest talents as a director is his ability to compose unique, appealing worlds that ebb and flow in line with his artistic vision.

His masterpiece, The Grand Budapest Hotel shows how Anderson's imagined worlds often seem to come from a different universe. Each of his ensemble casts presents a part of the story, adding one missing piece after another to a cinematic puzzle Anderson creates.

Established stylistics and a fresh approach

The themes explored by "Asteroid City" do not depart much from Anderson's other films, but in other ways it breaks new ground.

Like his previous works, it discusses death, life after death, forbidden love, and family ties.

 Through their struggles with such concepts, his characters go through a psychological and physical journey in search of answers over these big ideas which inform the human condition.

In Asteroid City, the protagonist of the play works out how to tell his children that their mother has died, as he makes a long journey to the desert, While he has not found the right time to tell them, but mostly, he is also struggling with the grief and sorrow himself.

At first glance, the film looks like another typical Anderson movie: a dark comedy about the journey of a widower and his children in a desert town to find a proper spot to bury his wife's ashes.

The visual elements are also in harmony with Anderson's signature aesthetics and narratives. Through his masterful creation of new worlds, he perfectly illustrates the desert town with unique colours, bringing it to life through the film's characters.

However, the town is not truly a town; it's a motel in the desert that one would think was limitless were it not for the characters' restricted movements within its narrow space.

Breaking new ground in Asteroid City

Anderson's films are typically meticulously structured, as if the emotions he aspires to evoke in viewers are carefully planned.

In depicting emotions, his films employ all possible cinematic tools, down to the camera angle and soundtrack, to accentuate and convey the characters' feelings through a wide range, including love and sorrow.

But Asteroid City breaks new ground. It departs from that methodological, structural style in favour of completely laying bare the characters' emotions.

The movie is not entirely devoid of Anderson visual style and witty characters. But the introduction of the key theme and the protagonist – Augie, a war photojournalist – does not give the audience any indication or warning that this is a dark comedy or tragedy.

It does not stir specific emotions in us towards any of its characters. Instead, the movie leaves it entirely to the audience to evaluate the course of events and how to react to each of its characters.

Via the theme of bereavement, Anderson also explores ideas about the significance of art, the universe, and life after death, posing real-life and elusive questions that are not counterbalanced by comedic plotlines and stylised visuals.

More important, Asteroid City depicts death as a harsh and direct truth, in a stark departure from Anderson's previously euphemistic approach to it.

Early arrival after a risk taken by the director

By altering his narrative style, Anderson undoubtedly took a risk with his audience. Asteroid City is not as fast-paced as his previous works, nor is the dialogue or visual elements as intense.

Many viewers may not be moved by its dramatic effect. Personally, I was touched by the agony of Augie, played by Jason Schwarzman.

His dilemma is only settled after all the other characters leave the quarantine imposed by the military in  after an alien lands at the desert site and steals the asteroid after which the City is named, , before eventually returning it.

By then, Augie and his family left alone and he can break the news.

His temporary quarantine was a distraction from the painful loss of his wife. But once over, he was left on his own to confront his hardship.

In most of Anderson's other films, the characters arrive at a particular destination in the end. But in Asteroid City, they get there early in the movie, but their destination seems to be temporary and insignificant, merely a stop on the way to the other side.