Asteroid City and the Limitations of Art

'Asteroid City' sees director Wes Anderson at both the most aware and most unrepentant of his own Wes Anderson-ness. We loved it. Today, we take a look at what the film is saying about art, our relationship to art, and how art fails us in our attempts at self-expression.
Script by LP Mills: sealight-studi...
Music by Lee Rosevere: leerosevere.ba...
#asteroidcity #wesanderson #art #filmtheory #videoessay
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[@gavinwainwright3473]

I loved this perspective. I am fascinated with Asteroid City. To me, due to Wes Anderson's style of intentional artificiality of characterisation and environments, like robots inside a plastic, cartoon magazine world, + subject of existential threat, nuclear tests / aliens, this film sits perfectly between 'Barbie' & 'Oppenheimer'

[@sinbadsgirlfriend]

wow this is an incredible take, thank you for making this!

[@NomadicBrian]

Interesting analysis. I'm making my way through discussions about the film. Perhaps to reinforce the thought that I could not be the only one that cannot easily understand completely what is going on. Keep making great films Wes.

[@bengreen2200]

Great video, i definitely missed a few bits when i saw it! Keep up the good content though 👍

[@randomcookieboy]

I am astounded by how few views this video has.

[@UDSFilms]

Tell your friends!

[@paolopuno3341]

Unique take and great analysis!

[@UDSFilms]

Thank you so much!

[@machiel5888]

Great video with some unique perspectives! I really appreciate how you talk about the role art plays in this film. I think many video essays on this film get too hung up on one aspect like grief or lockdown or generational differences and they end up missing the forest for the trees a bit. You seem to cover all the bases! I do have a few questions: What makes you say that Augie laments his decision to take a photo of the alien? You say this at 4:30 and then play a clip of Augie's dialogue where he's talking about the Alien and "your mother". I took this as being in reference to the cut Dream scene where he met their mother and discussed the if she talked to the alien or asked him the secrets of the universe. I don't see how it was referring to him taking a photo of the alien, unless I missed something. Augie also defends his decision to take a photo of the alien to his own son at the end of the film, bluntly stating "I'm a photographer" when asked why he took a picture if he doesnt care about the alien. Another small point I understood differently was the line from Midge's daughter about being sick of her face. Midge is an absent mother in a lot of ways (as she says), but she also states that she has a great time when she's with her kids. She does listen to her daughter in their first scene together when they get out of the car, and they seem to have a quietly-content relationship with each other. It's actually very similar to how Augie and Woodrow are together. Both Augie and Midge have commitment issues with the kids. Augie says he considered leaving them with grandpa, and Midge admits to prioritizing other things. At the end of the film you see Augie grab Woodrow's hand as though they're learning how to be there emotionally for each other. I think Midge and her daughter love each other in a similar way and the film leaves a lot of room to interpret their relationship. Her daughter does say "im sick of her face" but that's not in reference to disliking her mother. It's in reference to disliking her celebrity! She follows it up with "but I love her voice, she should do more radio". In one line she shows appreciation for her mother's talents and an understanding of her insane celebrity status. I don't think she was actually tired of her mother's face, i think she was sick of her mom's face belonging to everyone else instead of her. Your point stands that Midge invests so much into her characters that it negatively affects her relationships with her kids, but I don't think that specific line was necessarily indicative of that. Thank you for the excellent video, I look forward to seeing more of your work :)

[@panasonicyouff666]

Grand Budapest is still better yo

[@TimeisReel]

This Movie was Style over Cohesiveness... (Bad)

[@chucklebutt4470]

This is about as close to 'explaining' the movie as I've seen so far, nice job! When I saw the movie I hadn't seen any of the promotional material and just knew it was a Wes Anderson movie. The alien had me losing my shit. Those scenes are so silly and fun.