The Films of Wes Anderson: ‘The Swan’, ‘The Ratcatcher’ & ‘Poison’
Looking at the experimental nature of Wes Anderson’s three Roald Dahl adaptations
To be completely honest, I had no idea that Anderson has made three Roald Dahl adaptations into short films until after watching and, for the most part, finishing my review of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. The four films, including Henry Sugar, received such little advertising and fanfare that I only became aware of the latter three short films after reading up some more about Henry Sugar and seeing others, clearly more in the know than I was, saying how excited they were to see what else Anderson had in store.
Even then, I didn’t plan on discussing the three short films. I watched each one the morning that they release, three days in a row. Wednesday saw Henry Sugar release, Thursday was for The Swan, Friday for The Ratcatcher and Saturday was for Poison. All are adaptations of stories that I was little aware of despite having been quite an avid Dahl reader as a child. Fantastic Mr. Fox reminded me of my memories of Dahl’s work growing up, and these four short films only made those remembrances stronger.
The four films all utilise the same style as well as the same cast and crew. That may sound terrible, but it is anything but. Re-occurring…
