Wes Anderson's commentary on Cain and Abel in 'The Phoenician Plan': Whoever beats who...

I had learned about Cecil B. DeMille’s words, “The Bible has been a best-seller for centuries. Why would I miss two thousand years of advertising?” and “Give me two random pages from the Bible and I’ll give you two movies,” thanks to our master Ülkü Tamer’s work, “Cinema Said…” Wes Anderson’s steamy film, “The Phoenician Scheme,” brought these words back to life in my mind.

Basing the subtext of his script on the goodness verses of the Bible, Anderson presents his audience with a different reflection of the story of Abel and Cain, with a father-daughter adventure and a family tragedy narrative.

FATHER-DAUGHTER ADVENTURE

Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro), an evil and rich industrial magnate, takes his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) with him to close the financial gap of the "Phoenician Plan", which he thinks is the last big project of his life as a magnate, every step of which is in shoe boxes, and the story begins. World leaders who want to sabotage Korda's commercial interests and plunder his assets constantly want to kill him, and Michael Sera joins this adventure with the character of Bjorn.

The film is set in the imaginary “Great Phoenician Kingdom”, but when we think about the present day of ancient Phoenicia, we come across Syria, Lebanon and Northern Israel. It is clear that this choice is not a coincidence. The dialogues, characters and symbols in the film, the revolutionaries who want to change the system, open the door to a kind of criticism of today’s capitalism, opposition to war and the issue of “family” that is on the agenda both in our country and in the world. But in the end, thanks to the sibling fight between Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) and father Zsa-zsa Korda, the following quote is engraved in people’s minds: “Maybe this is the source of our problems in this barren world: Who beats who!”

PARADE OF STARS

Nothing has changed in Anderson's story choice: Another unusual and broken family. The cinematography is the same as we left it: bird's eye shots, frames that will please symmetry obsessions, wide and intense pastel color palettes, carefully designed sets, a fast-paced, dizzying and hard-to-find narrative... This is his signature and suits him very well.

In this film, Anderson also suddenly turns colorful worlds into a black-and-white otherworld, as if whispering the warning, “There is death.” He attempts to use his love of contrast in his cinematography in his narrative as well.

Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Sera and Benedict Cumberbatch in this black comedy; Accompanied by names such as Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Scarlett Johansson, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Alex Jennings, Stephen Park, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antonia Desplat, Jason Watkins, Milo James and Max Mauff.