LWLies 108: The Phoeni­cian Scheme issue: Out now!

Every Wes Ander­son film is a major event on the cin­e­mat­ic cal­en­dar. It’s not mere­ly the film that is played in cin­e­mas and you saunter along on a Fri­day night to see it as big as pos­si­ble; a whole world emerges around it and the immer­sive lore draws you in with its irre­sistible whimsy. 

The Phoeni­cian Scheme is a film whose roots snake back to the pre­mière of The French Dis­patch in Cannes, where Ander­son men­tioned to one of his many stars, Beni­cio del Toro (at that point a Wes World debu­tant), that he had anoth­er project in the pipeline that he’d be keen to col­lab­o­rate on. Whisk on four years, one fea­ture (Aster­oid City), a hand­ful of shorts (includ­ing Oscar-win­ning The Won­der­ful Sto­ry of Hen­ry Sug­ar), and del Toro is suit­ed, boot­ed and very bruised as the most charm­ing arms deal­er in cin­e­ma his­to­ry, Zsa-zsa Korda.

Styled after the great Luis Buñuel (in both his style choic­es and his grap­pling with spir­i­tu­al moral­i­ty), Zsa-zsa is ini­tial­ly seen pilot­ing a sab­o­taged plane as it plum­mets to earth. He mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vives the crash and then decides its high time he put his lega­cy in order. Enter Sis­ter Liesl (Mia Threap­ple­ton), his estranged daugh­ter who is now a woman of the cloth and duly appalled by her father’s activ­i­ties. He explains to her his ​“scheme” and assures that upon com­ple­tion she will be shot of him and have her birthright. With Michael Cera’s Nor­we­gian insect schol­ar Bjorn along for the ride, we’re final­ly set for adventure.

The Phoeni­cian Scheme is a film obsessed with ephemera, objects and art, pos­si­bly more so than any Ander­son film before it. We have jumped on this intrigu­ing design aspect and made an issue col­lect­ing togeth­er books, film, art and music. And for this issue, in the spir­it of this over­whelm­ing­ly tac­tile, phys­i­cal film­mak­er, we have includ­ed an array of hand­made art­work of the type where you can see the human fin­ger­prints on each piece.

On the cover…

We have been mas­sive fan of the Chilean illus­tra­tor María Jesús Con­tr­eras whose colour­ful works offer a daz­zling com­bi­na­tion of the expres­sive and the absurd, and so we hoped she would answer a call for a Wes Ander­son-based com­mis­sion. The extra­or­di­nary piece she deliv­ered for us which adorns the cov­er of issue 108 was very loose­ly inspired by August Renoir’s famous paint­ing, Lun­cheon of the Boat­ing Par­ty, in ref­er­ence to Zsa-zsa’s own for­mi­da­ble art col­lec­tion and Anderson’s love of a great ensemble.

Also in this issue we have incred­i­ble new work from Mad­die Fis­ch­er, Elio Moavero, Zoe Pap­pen­heimer, Judith P. Renault, Stéphanie Seargeant and Nick Tay­lor.

In the issue…

Artists and Mod­els
Han­nah Strong has a long chat with the mae­stro him­self, Wes Anderson.

Rolling With the Punch­es
An intro­spec­tive Beni­cio del Toro on play­ing an absolute ras­cal and the trou­bles of see­ing him­self on screen.

Sis­ter of Mer­cy
A dead­pan star is born in the form of The Phoeni­cian Scheme star, Mia Threapleton.

Pure Dyna­mite
Michael Cera x Wes Ander­son is a match made in heav­en, and the actor him­self hearti­ly agrees.

Set It Off
The pro­duc­tion design leg­end, Anna Pin­nock, talks build­ing a world fit for Zsa-zsa Korda.

Rot­ters! Ras­cals! Rap­scal­lions!
Inspired by Zsa-zsa Kor­da, 49 rot­ters plucked from the films of the 1940s.

A Wes Ander­son Book Depos­i­to­ry
A three-pronged cel­e­bra­tion of books – real and fake – in and around the world of Wes Anderson.

In the back section…

Ben Rivers
David Jenk­ins speaks to Ben Rivers about his return to the Scot­tish wilder­ness for his new feature.

Daisy-May Hud­son
Kather­ine McLaugh­lin talks to the writer/​director about the ambigu­ous and some­times trag­ic nature of moth­er­hood that is the sub­ject of her force­ful debut.

Athi­na Rachel Tsan­gari
The indus­tri­ous and pas­sion­ate Greek film­mak­er on her sub­tly apoc­a­lyp­tic new work, Har­vest.

In review…

David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds
Beat­rice Minger’s E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
Ben Rivers’s Bogan­cloch
Mar­i­ano Llinás’s The Trip­tych of Mon­gon­go
Sean Byrne’s Dan­ger­ous Ani­mals
John Maclean’s Tor­na­do
Katell Quillévéré’s Along Came Love
Andreas Dresen’s From Hilde, With Love
Daisy-May Hudson’s Lol­lipop
Hind Meddeb’s Sudan, Remem­ber Us
Amalia Ulman’s Mag­ic Farm
Rúnar Rúnarsson’s When the Light Breaks
Kei Pritsker and Michael T Workman’s The Encamp­ments
James Griffiths’s The Bal­lad of Wal­lis Island
Athi­na Rachel Tsangari’s Har­vest
Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk
Aylin Tezel’s Falling Into Place

Matt Turn­er and David Jenk­ins review eight excit­ing Home Ents releas­es; Mari­na Ash­i­oti sends a post­card from the IndieLis­boa film fes­ti­val, and for her Sticky Gold Stars col­umn, writes about the dig­i­tal archiv­ing efforts pre­serv­ing Pales­tin­ian and trans visu­al culture.

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