I’m sure by now many of you have checked out the new short film by Wes Anderson. If not, it’s available as a free download from iTunes. Hotel Chevalier stars two of my absolute faves, Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman. Not only are they fantastic in this subtle, unnerving short, but the concept of releasing a prequel, though only a smidge of a tale, before the feature hits the screens has me bristling with excitement at the potential reinvention of the film-going experience. Here’s the director’s take on the project:

“I have always liked short stories. This one is a companion piece to The Darjeeling Limited, but was originally meant to be seen on its own. It takes place two weeks before the feature film, and is set in a hotel room in France. There are many connections between the short and feature, and I hope that the people who see one of them will want to see the other…”

It’s the honoring of short stories that really rung true for me in this piece. Hotel Chevalier doesn’t spoon-feed the audience. It’s stunted, questioning, and ambiguous; I’d be hard-pressed to agree that it completely stands alone as Anderson offers. But rarely do feature film directors return to a shorter milieu, and the fact that he took the time to put this together, (even if it is, in a certain light, an element of a marketing campaign) gladdens me. Back in the day, well, back in someone’s day, serial stories were an integral part of the industry. A night at the theatre would generally include a couple short, episodic adventures which featured Tarzan or The Lone Ranger, or some other hearty trailblazer over weeks and months, in addition to the feature or features the audience paid to see, making it a full-bodied experience. The fact that Anderson’s playing in the same universe…well, let’s just say that when I hit the AMC, I’d love to see a short film or two next to the commercials for Ford and Coke and the Gap that assault my senses. And now that I think about it, Schwartzman’s character does have a bit of The Lone Ranger in him…

There’s so many talented filmmakers working independently, with few resources, producing works that are short in running time but long in worth, expression, emotion, and character. It’s nice to see that Wes Anderson hasn’t forgotten his roots, and is acknowledging the audience that would seek out creative depictions of stories and characters that are too large to fit into ninety minutes, even if only by a smidge.