The Phoenician Scheme

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Director Wes Anderson

Anderson on the set

Anderson with Mathieu Amalric,Mia Threapleton, and Benicio Del Toro

Kate Winslet with her daughter Mia Threapleton

Benicio Del Toro with Mia Threapleton and Scarlett Johansson

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME             B                                                                               USA  Germany  (101 mi)  2025  d: Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson is a descendant of the Marx brothers and Jacques Tati, humorists enthralled with the idea of creating their own cinematic universe, and while Anderson’s quirky dollhouse world may not be for everyone, with production designer Adam Stockhausen on full display, this esoteric espionage caper is among the harder to follow storylines of all his films, but that hardly matters as this just barrels along at a scintillating pace, with an evocative score by Alexandre Desplat, where one thing that is unmistakable is just how bat-shit crazy it is, told with a deadpan, screwball comedy relish, taking us places no one else in the world is willing to go, where this unique mindset and miniature visual aesthetic are certainly his own, as the attention to detail is stunning.  With all the throwaway gags, witty asides, and the historical and cinematic references, it’s nearly impossible to follow it all onscreen (an entire exhibition is dedicated to Anderson’s career at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, Enter the world of Wes Anderson at the Cinémathèque ..., while an exhibit at London’s Design Museum is planned in the fall, Wes Anderson: The Archives), as it’s gone in the blink of an eye, like the product placement of L.S./M.F.T. during a blood transfusion, a notorious advertisement for cigarettes, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco, Lucky Strike Commercial #1 (1948) YouTube (1:01), a seemingly insignificant detail that only speaks to those old enough and crazy enough to remember that advertisement jingle.  While a darkness has crept into his later films, often reflecting contemporary authoritarian trends, the director is way ahead of his times in that regard, as evidenced by The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which allegorized a creeping fascism, or 2018 Top Ten List #7 Isle of Dogs, where a corrupt authoritarian mayor has banned all dogs to an abandoned island, mirroring the current practice of Trump sending so-called dangerous immigrants to languish in overseas prisons.  Anderson’s framing and composition are, as always, exquisite, producing stills that are literally designed to look good enough to hang in an art gallery, where the end credits are among the more uniquely designed in recent memory, showing images of famous paintings that inspired the look of the film, all set to the music of Stravinsky’s Firebird, Stravinsky: Finale - Suite from The Firebird / Los Angeles ... YouTube (3:00), suggesting they have a profoundly liberating influence, while also including an amusing statement that this may not be used for the purposes of training AI.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is the casting of Kate Winslet’s daughter, Mia Threapleton, as a novitiate nun, who surprisingly holds her own against a cast of stars, most only appearing briefly, yet the A-list of names in the ensemble cast is impressive, suggesting there’s no shortage of people who want to work with Anderson, who is one of the defining visionaries of our generation, whose influence is felt far and wide.  Threapleton watched the animated feature FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009) when she was about eight or nine-years old, then was blown away by 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Moonrise Kingdom, deciding then and there that she wanted to work with Anderson one day, sending him a self-made audition tape for this film, recreating a scene from ISLE OF DOGS (2018), which the director loved, choosing her immediately after reading with leading protagonist Benicio Del Toro, who felt a connection working with her.  While people have different reactions to the idiosyncratic Wes Anderson experience, as all the characters are essentially cartoons, yet this film would just not be the same without her, providing the heart and soul that the other characters lack, inspired by Anderson’s relationship with his own daughter, making this a very personal film for him.  The film is dedicated to Anderson’s late father-in-law, Fuad Malouf, a Lebanese engineer and businessman who had a vast array of ongoing international projects in the works.  

Anderson has a multi-billionaire benefactor/business partner in Steven Rales, whose Indian Paintbrush (company) has almost exclusively produced every Anderson movie since 2007, with just a handful of other movies thrown in.  As for the film itself, it’s a wild and wacky affair, shot on 35mm in the Babelsberg Studio in Germany (the same studio where Fritz Lang shot METROPOLIS in 1927) by Bruno Delbonnel, responsible for the cutesy style of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s AMÉLIE (2001), Julie Taymor’s psychedelic Beatles fantasia ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007), and the magnificent look of Joel Coen’s 2022 Top Ten List #5 The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), where this is the first live-action film not shot by Anderson’s regular cinematographer Robert Yeoman.  Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, with a script co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, this film delves into the nefarious world of trade and commerce, which includes sabotage, a hidden espionage ring, and multiple assassination attempts, as personified by industrialist and arms dealer Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio Del Toro), a ruthless opportunist and the richest man in Europe who also dabbles in the defense and aviation industry, loosely based on Armenian oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, who helped Western companies exploit the oil-producing regions of the Middle East while amassing a huge fortune and art collection of more than 6000 works of art, which he kept in a private museum at his Paris house (now housed in a museum in Lisbon), described by an art expert in a 1950 article from Life magazine, Mystery billionaire, "Never in modern history has one man owned so much."  This unscrupulous element of wielding power in order to make as much money as possible is a stark contrast to the art-inspired visual feast that commands the screen, showing a darker side of the American artist, perhaps reflected by that same turn of events in American politics, as it’s difficult to say whether Anderson really wanted to offer thoughts on global capitalism, but the connection to a contemporary reality, and some well-known billionaires, is all too evident.  Set in 1950, we first meet Zsa-Zsa flying in his private plane somewhere over the Balkans when he hears a strange sound, like a loud thump, quickly turning around, only to see a bomb blast completely eviscerate a fuselage side panel, taking his personal secretary with it, but he miraculously survives a crash landing.  This near death experience, apparently his sixth or seventh assassination attempt, plunges him headlong into a vision of the afterlife, shifting to black and white imagery, where he literally sits in judgment of his life from beyond the grave, confronted with his own mortality, where God is played by Bill Murray, a large bearded figure in white robes, surrounded by otherworldly beings.  Because of the shadowy forces repeatedly targeting him with assassination attempts, while also trying to undermine his business ventures, he summons his long-abandoned and pious daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who he hasn’t seen in years, to discuss making her the sole heir to his fortune, having mysteriously disinherited all his many sons, The Phoenician Scheme Movie Clip - Sole Heir (2025) YouTube (42 seconds).  This brief, yet highly effective scene taking place in his palazzo-inspired residence full of fine art establishes the particulars, “Never buy good pictures.  Buy masterpieces,” setting the framework for the rest of the film, becoming a battle of wills, like a morality play, where despite all the absurd encounters and theatrical shenanigans turning into an action-packed, globe-trotting romp, it’s all essentially a cover for a story about a father trying, in his own bizarre way, to connect with the daughter he barely knows, embracing themes like tragedy, redemption, honor, and yes, happiness.

Zsa-Zsa has a habit of carrying around a satchel of hand grenades, which he hands out to business partners like souvenirs during their encounters, where he typically starts out with the familiar refrain, “Help yourself to a hand grenade,” which people are more than happy to accept.  His titular “scheme” is to develop multiple infrastructure projects across “Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia,” a fictional land populated by princes, spies, revolutionaries, and large investors, and a mammoth Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme involving a canal, a massive tunnel, a railroad line, and a hydroelectric dam.  His wheeler-dealer style has created many enemies, known disparagingly as “Mr. Five Per Cent” for his ability to always take a cut, hated the world over as he thinks everyone can be bought, having no friends and an unloving family he has largely ignored, but the business world hates him for exploiting local workers as slave labor, for his rampant lies and deceit, accountable to no laws whatsoever, and for dubiously cutting corners to become ridiculously successful.  Liesl has lived in a convent ever since her mother died when she was young, still stinging from the belief that Zsa-Zsa may have had something to do with her demise, as all his ex-wives died under suspicious circumstances, yet he steadfastly denies any involvement.  While he’s obviously a galvanizing figure, her insistence at discovering who was behind her mother’s murder leads her to accept this vaguely conceived succession agreement, on a trial basis, of course, bringing these seeming opposites together.  Zsa-Zsa’s grand scheme is outlined in a series of labeled shoeboxes, each containing a core component to the project, but rising production costs means he needs to close a gap in the plan’s financing, requiring visits to various key players to cover the artificially inflated costs, as his enemies have skyrocketed building material prices for his construction projects.  Liesl agrees to join Zsa-Zsa on his journey, accompanied by his special assistant, the family’s Norwegian tutor and entomologist, Bjørn (Michael Cera), who utters the unthinkable, “I speak my heart, I’m a Bohemian,” returning to the skies once again, with Zsa-Zsa repeatedly offering the reassuring words, “Myself, I feel very safe.”  Liesl is stunned to discover he’s been spying on her, though Zsa-Zsa is quick to retort, “It’s not called spying when you’re the parent.  It’s called nurturing.”  Where it all leads is to pure chaos and pandemonium, with a flurry of scenes strewn together, each more strangely disconcerting than the next, THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME - "Human Rights" Official Clip YouTube (1:10), THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME - "Oh Dear" Official Clip YouTube (42 seconds), THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME - "You Used to Work for Me ... YouTube (44 seconds), meeting with fez-wearing, French nightclub owner Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), a reference to Jacques Becker’s TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954), interrupted by a group of armed revolutionaries, weirdly getting stuck in quicksand, while also visiting his second Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), who runs a “Utopian Outpost.”  But the ultimate showdown is with his big-bearded brother, Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch, looking like a Russian czar), “He’s not human, he’s biblical,” which is literally a blood feud made to resemble a battle between a Marvel superhero and a villain, set to the bombastic music of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (Orch. Ravel) : Promenade 1 YouTube (1:44), turning into a day of reckoning.  What follows is not what anyone would expect, with a beautifully charming Buñuelian twist at the end that does not disappoint, feeling strangely humanizing all of a sudden, saturated with dry wit and humor, yet the incessant business jargon used throughout seems intentionally designed to leave viewers emotionally disconnected through an obsessive ironic detachment, as none of it really makes any sense, nonetheless this is a welcome addition to the Wes Anderson universe, filled with pastel appeal and memorable charm, where what really stands out is that the actors truly shine, displaying impeccable comic timing in this elaborately constructed geometrical puzzle box.      

Inside Man

Director Spike Lee

INSIDE MAN            B+                                                                                                                 USA  (129 mi)  2006  d: Spike Lee

You know, there’s a famous saying by the Baron de Rothschild, “When there’s blood in the streets, buy property.”                                                                                                 —Madeleine White (Jodie Foster)

A huge commercial success for Lee, one of the few features he directed that he did not write, his only feature to be No. 1 at the box office in the first week of its release, ultimately grossing $185 million, more than four times the budget of $45 million, his most profitable film to date, yet his plans for a sequel never materialized, reassigned elsewhere as INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED (2019), a tepid film that ended up on Netflix.  Beginning with a Bollywood sounding opening song, Inside Man " Chaiyya Chaiyya" (Version RB) - YouTube YouTube (7:22), adding a cultural universality which plays in perfect precision to a distinctive New York City opening montage, while Dalton Russell (Clive Owen), a criminal mastermind in close-up, speaking directly to the camera, narrates a robbery taking place at the main branch of the Manhattan Trust Bank, a fictional institution located at Wall Street and Broadway, where capitalism intersects with show business, confessing to a perfect crime, apparently from an enclosed prison cell, so the entire film may be playing back in flashback mode.  Taking control of the bank while disguised as house painters, each of the four bank robbers are wearing sunglasses and masks, as they immediately dismantle the surveillance system while taking customers and bank employees as hostages, blindfolding and separating them, tying their hands behind their backs, then switching them from room to room, never allowing hostages or viewers to be certain of who they are, identifying themselves only as derivations of the name Steve (Carlos Andrés Gómez), like Stevie (Kim Director), or Steve-O (James Ransone).  Immediately the bank is surrounded by a horde of NYPD officers as well as snipers on the roofs, commanded by Captain Darius (Willem Dafoe), all targeting the entrance.  Each time the robbers release a hostage, they are accompanied by a message, yet police immediately point their guns and handcuff them before taking them away, each one viewed as a suspect until proven otherwise.  One is a Sikh bank employee, Vikram Walia (Waris Ahluwalia), who is mandhandled by the police, thinking he’s carrying a bomb as he looks like an Arab, causing him to lose his turban, a symbol of religious observance, showing no regard whatsoever for his loss, despite his repeated pleading, where the belligerence of the predominantly white NYPD is all-consuming, wearing their pronounced racism on their sleeve, as they know only one gear, brute ferocity, which suggests a crude indifference.  It must be said, few capture the rhythm and earthy style of New York City like Spike Lee, who seems to delight in the way people express themselves, using different pronunciations, different inflections in their speech, all seemingly spewing profanity, with the director having an eye and ear for detail, often injecting humor, beautifully encapsulating a city as only he can.  Opening in the theaters at the same time as another thriller, V FOR VENDETTA (2005), it’s interesting that both use a similar plot device in the commission of a crime, dressing all the hostages up in the exact same masks and jump suits that they are wearing while V improbably sends Guy Fawkes masks to everyone in London to thoroughly confuse the police establishment, in each case allowing the criminals to perfectly blend into the crowd.  This has the makings of another bank heist caper, and even pays homage in the script to Dog Day Afternoon (1975), using two actors recreating similar roles from that earlier film, a hostage, Marcia Jean Kurtz, and a pizza delivery guy, Lionel Pina, while the pizza itself comes from Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, a reference to Do the Right Thing (1989), but this one surprisingly has other hidden motives buried beneath the layers of the 9/11 rubble, namely the politically connected cover ups of New York City’s finest, who conveniently make deals to keep the real problems from ever surfacing.  Shot by Matthew Libatique, mostly with handheld cameras, using a distinct visual style, favoring the long, continuous shot, this is a film simmering with a cross-section of New York City sounds and surfaces, featuring a variety of ethnic groups, even a street-wise 8-year old child (Amir Ali Said) playing what amounts to the world’s most violent video game.  Unafraid of the bank robbers, as he’s from “Brooklyn,” he tells the police he actually identifies with the robbers, as they’re just trying to get paid.  The same can not be said for the rest of the hostages, most of whom cower in fear, made to strip down to their underwear and wear identical outfits, forced to hand over their cellphones to the robbers, yet one wise guy tries to outsmart them, quickly identified, pulled into another room, and through a translucent window of a closed room, we see him getting the snot beaten out of him, a clever device that keeps all the others in line.  The shot through the window, captured in real time, shares the same spatial viewpoint of the hostages, where viewers see what other hostages see, which allows us to easily identify with them.  Another shot shows Russell with the young kid sitting alone in the bank vault, offering him a pizza slice and a drink, seen chatting casually, a shot that allows viewers to identify with the bank robbers, as they’re not seen as such bad guys, demonstrating compassion, going out of their way to take an interest in this kid, undermining the stereotype of a criminal mentality.  This shot actually expands the ambiguous nature of Russell, whose motives remain unclear throughout, as they’re not really interested in taking the money, but seem obsessed by the contents in one particular safety deposit box.  This subverts the motives of a typical bank heist film, while confusing both the cops and audiences alike, adding a level of psychological mystery and intrigue not normally seen in genre movies.            

Denzel Washington plays another cocky police officer, Detective Keith Frazier, along with his sidekick, Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor), making a living as a smooth-talking hostage negotiator.  In what appears to be an homage to SHAFT (1971), he keeps his girlfriend (Cassandra Freeman) simmering in the sheets while he’s out taking care of the city’s business, matching wits with the bad guys.  Here he’s under police investigation on a drug case that’s suspiciously missing $140,000, but due to a convenient police personnel absence, he’s called into action on a bank heist in progress with hostages.  Once this makes the news, Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), the bank CEO, a financier with something to hide, goes into action to protect his shameful secrets which are contained in an unregistered safety deposit box, calling in a mysterious, ultra-professional power broker, or fixer, an unusually perky Jodie Foster as Madeleine White, a shadowy figure dressed in stiletto heels and sharp designer suits who greases the wheels for the super rich and either clears the way for what they want or makes their problems disappear, all for huge sums of money.  The rest of the film unravels through various hierarchies, as there’s a chain of command in place at every level, the perpetrators of the crime, and those responsible for providing law and order, where White, in speaking to Frazier, makes it clear she is working above his pay grade, setting him straight, so to speak, reminding him of “his place.”  In other words, blacks are not welcome in the ultra elite confines of Wall Street business transactions.  The objectives of both remain obscure and unclear, covered up in a politically recognizable public persona that we all see on TV, where motives and explanations remain fairly standard, while their real purpose remains secretive and hidden and may never see the light of day.  Both sides secretly plant security microphones on each other, with the police foiled by a mastermind crook who is on to their techniques, as what the police microphone picks up is a long drawn-out speech by a former Albanian President, now deceased, alerting them that their surveillance efforts failed.  Back and forth negotiations have also stalled, with Frazier making no headway, yet he remains baffled by the case, developing a healthy respect for his counterpart who seems to anticipate his every move.  In a climactic moment, as the police are about to send in a SWAT team, Frazier becomes aware of a microphone sent out with one of the earlier hostages, allowing the robbers to listen to the police plans the entire time, including this police raid storming the bank.  Having prepared for this, the robbers gather all the hostages, mixed together with the robbers themselves, all dressed alike, and release them out the front door, where it’s virtually impossible to detect differences between victims and perpetrators.  The police point their guns, push everyone to the ground, and handcuff each hostage, while taking them into custody on police buses.  As it turns out, none of the hostages recognize any of the robbers, and perhaps more surprisingly, no money was taken.  According to the bank, nothing is missing, so no real crime occurred.  Frazier is ordered to bury the case, though obvious questions remain as to the unanswered motive, which has cleverly been kept secret, though Frazier is on to the missing safe deposit box.  What typically happens is that anyone getting too close is either transferred, fired, or their careers ruined.  In this film, Washington’s cop mixes it up with some pretty exclusive company.  Lee pitched the film to Hollywood executives as a star-ridden movie that, unlike his previous films, did not contain a racial or polarizing narrative.  The promotion of the film accentuated a typical box office strategy of an action-packed bank heist thriller, omitting Lee’s name from the marketing campaign, as studios found him too didactic and controversial politically, only to discover a suspenseful narrative, written by first-time screenwriter Russell Gewirtz, a former lawyer, that was actually about contemporary racism, anti-Semiticsm, and a lust for capitalist greed, with an indirect commentary on the Patriot Act’s forced standardization of national diversity, centered around New York and the homogenization of the city’s culture.  One remarkable aspect of the film is the utilization of film noir and neo-noir to construct a counter-narrative on security and surveillance that causes confusion, pointing out the prevalent use of cameras both inside and outside the bank, while also taking a look at the erasure of history through the narrative and stylistic conventions of an action film.  This film makes surprising references to the Holocaust, noting what kind of blatant thievery was taking place by the Nazi’s, as Jews transported to death camps were in no position to protect their financial interests, so their wealth was stolen blindly by their adversaries, then covered up in the aftermath of war, with some cashing in their stolen investments to make a killing, showing a structurally corrupt system still at work today.  Basically Lee made a film within the studio system that shrewdly criticizes the system.  Without ever offering a history lesson, this is key to understanding the underlying complexity of this film, and what really makes it worth watching, as sprinkled throughout Lee’s career his movies have taken an interest in critical moments in history.  Many viewers, however, missed this aspect of the film, believing he left his moral concerns behind, finding the film’s lack of a political agenda refreshing.

One of the few films that connected 9/11 to the impending stock market crash of 2007 (Financial crisis of 2007–2008 - Wikipedia), with a multitude of bank foreclosures, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, where minorities took the greatest hit, and few were ever held accountable.  Fittingly, most of the action is set on Wall Street.  In the period after 9/11, the pressure on dissent reached nearly all aspects of American society, with unjustified arrests, interrogations of demonstrators, a presence of FBI agents on college campuses, libraries forced to inform federal authorities about books patrons checked out, citizens removed or arrested from malls for wearing “peace” T-shirts, with students and teachers censored from schools and universities.  While those acts are blatantly unconstitutional, the Patriot Act allows for unprecedented state surveillance, signed literally weeks after the terrorist bombings with virtually no public debate, and with vast public approval, many believing it would help authorities track down the enemies living amongst us, yet it led to routine mistreatment of citizens, no longer accorded civil liberties, as anyone could become a suspect in the war on terrorism.  Open suspicion by police is an underlying theme of the film, as anyone displaying Arab descent is immediately viewed as a criminal, openly mistreated, denied any rights, with ordinary citizens showing little concern for what they routinely see happening.  In fact, despite being intimidated and tied up by the robbers, threatened to be killed, none of the hostages show any willingness to cooperate with police, as Lee cleverly shows New Yorkers are hardly united behind law enforcement.  This film borrows from 80’s film noir, like Michael Mann’s Thief (1981), or William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA (1985), including an expressionistic use of architecture, a restrained color palette, exaggerated and dramatic shadows and silhouettes, with a giant American flag draped over the New York Stock Exchange building.  One of the talks between Frazier and Madeleine White takes place in front of a mural of the American flag, with the stripes replaced by the words “We will never forget.”  With a screen time of just seconds, happening during a furious rush of excitement, many never recall even seeing this blatant visual cue, while a discussion among hostages attempts to evaluate whether the robbers could be terrorists, with one emphatically denouncing that prospect, a Columbia professor, a lawyer with experience in these matters, claiming they are simply robbers.  Again, while brief, this connects the film to 9/11, educating the audience that robbers are different than terrorists, proven by the fact that they all get out of there alive.  What we’ve really learned from this bank fiasco is that the system is corrupt, that news reports barely touch the surface, as only a few involved actually know what happened, with the real crime remaining hidden under layers of subterfuge, shrouded in ambiguity, yet Frazier has the wherewithal to see it through, turning him into a neo-noir hero, reminiscent of Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes in CHINATOWN (1974), where his moral ambiguity is hidden by Denzel Washington’s charismatic performance.  At the time of the film’s release, it was viewed almost exclusively as an electrifying commercial thriller, with little else read into it.  As a result, while much has been written about Spike Lee’s films overall, very little critical evaluation has been written about this particular film among researchers or critics alike.  While the thriller aspect is well-made, suspenseful, and holds our interest throughout an anxious 24-hour day, from the morning of the heist until the next morning, with a few bleached-out hostage interrogation scenes that are told out of order, it’s the unpredictable people factor that rises above other similar films, such as the story of the beat cop who discovered the robbery in progress, Sergeant Collins (Victor Colicchio), who later tells Frazier the story of how a gun was first pointed in his face, using pointedly racial imagery, or the actions of the police SWAT team, treating all innocent hostages just like criminals, especially those fitting Arabic profiles, or an interesting turn of events which requires, of all things, an Albanian translator, who negotiates her services only if her basketful of parking tickets can disappear.  These little slice-of-life interludes humanize this otherwise typical genre film, yet the movie changes gears and moods when it gives way to subtextual commentary about the corrupt foundation of global capitalism, including racial and cultural tensions associated with globalized problems, like the formation of an international workforce.  As an aside, Frazier distinguishes himself by being so much in touch with the multi-ethnic sounds of the street, rising to an art form, while the clueless and out of touch language of the rich white suits at the top, such as the interplay between the mayor, Foster, or Plummer, the proverbial “powers that be,” stands in stark contrast, speaking the language of Wall Street.  Seemingly lifeless and inert, a vague, empty aspect of an empowered culture, where you wonder who they could possibly speak for in terms of representation, yet this speaks volumes about the cultural divide, as they are products of a privileged elite, not really in touch with the common man, which is just another distinguishing aspect of the film, and part of the intelligence and skillful pacing that is established throughout.  However, the coolness factor of both Owen and Washington is superb in a test of wills between two indomitable characters, while brewing just under the surface are wheels in motion where they could easily fly off the handle at any second, yet both maintain a charming wit and calm that perhaps no one else in the business could provide.