Wes Anderson and his work:

For this assignment I saw the following movies directed and written by Wes Anderson: Rushmore (1998), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012). It’s pretty clear: these are Wes Anderson movies. There are especially three important similarities between them – family- and love-relationships, complicated (main) characters and stylization. I will spend most of this blog post reflecting over some these themes.

Families and relationships. If anything, this is what keeps most of Anderson’s movies moving forward. In lack of an obvious plot, there are always the dysfunctional (but still relatable) relationships that engage the viewers and challenge our point of view. In Rushmore there is the infatuation that Max Fishcer holds for his teacher Rosemary Cross – in The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou, father tries to get to know his supposed son after decades of separation – and Sam and Suzy runs away together after feeling isolated from everyone else than eachother, in Moonrise Kingdom. The Darjeeling Limited is a little less forward – and some may even say more boring than the abovementioned ones – three brothers set out on a spiritual journey through India and tries to figure out why their mom never attended their fathers funeral. Though the situations that Anderson creates for his characters are a little exaggerated I think we can all somehow relate to the conundrums they go through – either we despise them for the decisions they make or we feel with them. Interesting anyway, and a nice gesture from Anderson; letting us kids with dysfunctional families and failing relationships know that it could be worse. That at least we are not alone in our struggles.

Wes Anderson’s characters are like onions to me – layers of layers with personality that slowly sheds as the movie progresses. Also they can make you cry. There is a strong sense of self-belief and serious in the self in the leading characters, while they most of the time remain emotionless to anything happening around them- resulting in a humorous combination. Especially talented in this is iconic actor Bill Murray, which keeps returning for every movie made by Wes Anderson – even in The Darjeeling Limited we get a glimpse of him, running after the train. In Rushmore he has the role as Max Fischer’s older but good friend, which eventually falls for the same teacher and gets put in a small dilemma. Again, as Steve Zissou, he falls in love with the pregnant Cate Blanchett whom has feelings for his son – again putting him in a little of a dilemma. The son, played by Owen Wilson, is also a character that displays extraordinary little emotion – which makes the whole thing seem kind of surreal. Still, this does not imply that the characters are flat or empty – on the contrary they are not – they are extremely true to themselves, and their state of emotionlessness forces us to look at their actions and decisions rather than their reactions. This again forces us to look at ourselves, because we are the ones having the reactions to the characters actions – maybe we are judgmental and disgusted or maybe we are joyous and intrigued. Aswell; the characters, just like us, are obviously suppressing their emotional turmoil.

Maybe, the most obvious similarity between all of Anderson’s movies (to everyone in the audience) is the aesthetic style and mellow soundtrack. And as a photographer I find this very appealing – however, as a human, I find the message and journey throughout all of WA’s movies more intriguing.

You and The Sims

So I haven’t played many video games throughout my life but the ones I’ve liked I played a lot! I don’t like to destroy and kill – but create and build – so simulations have always been fun to me. The Sims (all of them….), Myst, Pokemon and Harvest Moon are probably the only ones I played over and over again; just ask my dad.. Myst was the only game my grandpa would play and my dad just likes flight simulators and fighting games – but I, whom copied everything they did, spent countless hours on The Sims. Hours spent building virtual houses; creating relationships and families; and basically designing their life. Now I ask myself why – why did I spend so many hours on that? It seems kind of pointless now – and expensive.

However, when we were assigned to read You – a title which by the way I find a little misleading (sounds more like a self-help guide) – I was reminded of The Sims and how much I love(d) playing it.  Still, the book was not as fun as maybe I had hoped and I most of the time I just felt like playing an actual video game (which hasn’t happened for a couple of years now).. it just brought back my urge to build wild buildings and obstacle courses for my sims. And though I hope I never will spend so much time on something so little constructive again; I found out that The Sims actually have given me a lot of things back. I still kind of wish I had spent those hours on making something with my hands instead… but but. I will now tell you what the Sims actually gave me. For one, it gave me English. Two, it rewarded me for my creativity and made me want to do more. Thirdly, it made me consider a career within architecture, game arts or just design in general.

There was two conditions from my dad before he would buy me any The Sims games – that I would limit my time and take breaks with the game, but also that I could only play it in English. The first time I played it was at the age 10 or so and not long after I owned my first one. We have ten years of English education starting from we are 8 – so for two years I already had learnt the basics in English (or I was supposed to). However, what eventually elevated me from the rest of the class in (especially) writing, and reading English, was simply playing The Sims in English. All the things that happen in the Sims are a consequence of you deciding out from a range of options – or not deciding at all. And for every action there is a commando-line that I had to learn and understand – by me trying and failing and remembering that for example “dive” means (most of the time) to jump head first in the water. Over several years and after several editions – I had a pretty broad English vocabulary solely based on The Sims. Which, now that I come to think of it, is kind of ironic since Sims actually speak Simlish, not English.

Anyways; since I became quite advanced in this game I just wanted to get further. I learnt to cheat; make as much money as I wanted or succeed in any career – to design my own wallpaper textures and skin tones (pink with blue dots, anyone?) and hairstyles – create my own pets and plants. Basically, I became creative with the game – it challenged me; I challenged it. Just like in the book You. Still I think playing The Sims would have been so much more fun – if not productive – than reading the book.