the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.

Connect with us:
FacebookTwitterYouTubeRSS

In London, Secret Cinema’s The Grand Budapest Hotel Screenings Bring Life to This Enchanting Ruin

A couple of hours after my arrival in West London, this adventure starts with me, comically overdressed and clutching a precisely wrapped bouquet of pink (as was instructed) roses in the cavernous Baker Street station. Two stops later, the District line train becomes the stage for more guests, all with varying types of pink flowers, dressed in their finest ’30s evening wear. It’s 11:45 am on a Saturday, and we are heading for the Grand Budapest Hotel.  

Based and so far operating exclusively in London, Secret Cinema is likely the most elaborate way to see a film. The premise is simple, but it’s out there: you buy a ticket, and then you receive (in this case) neurotically specific instructions including a map to a secret location no less than two days before the event. 

With the exception of these Grand Budapest Hotel screenings, the film is also kept under wraps. Secret Cinema has become a ritual of sorts for film fans in London: my companion at the screening of the film recounts with joy her experiences with the company, noting the staging of The Shawshank Redemption was a standout. (Free pints all around during the rooftop scene is just one part of it.) 

grand-budapest-hotelThe Grand Budapest Hotel was a must for me, being a Wes Anderson obsessive and having been a temporary Londoner during my semesters abroad. This particular screening was my fourth for this film, which I have deemed one of the director’s masterpieces and certainly marks a degree of maturation for him. As a result, I couldn’t have been more elated to live, even if just for a few hours, within his imagined reality in my favorite city. Though, for the sake of honesty, I try to live in a Wes Anderson film every day. 

Going back about a month, my inbox chirped during one of my film classes. I had not been expecting an email from Secret Cinema until a day or so before my flight, but there it was, styled as if on old parchment and containing a page’s worth of meticulous instructions. 

I’m not keen on spoiling the surprise for anyone who plans on attending, but I will say that the aforementioned flowers and black tie attire are key to the aesthetic. Also recommended is committing to learning a brief poem to recite back to one of the hotel’s fellow eccentric guests. The sappier, the better. 

A few minute’s walk from the tube, some lobby boys and grisly men clad in black leather stand waiting at the mouth of an cruelly narrow alley (which isn’t an uncommon feature in central London, the global city built on cow paths of the Roman Empire). By 12:10, about a hundred men and women garbed in vintage black tie stand in the queue, much to the bewilderment of tourists who’ve somehow strayed from the path of the usual tour bus route. 

Periodically, a mock-up of Willem Dafoe’s character snatches an unsuspecting guest out of line, demanding to see immigration papers. It is the exactly correct measures of camp, wit, and commitment to the atmosphere of The Grand Budapest Hotel. In this massive group, we are then led to the site of a retired factory, where this Grand Budapest Hotel finds its home.

Upon entry, smartphones (those perpetual fun-ruiners) are checked by lobby boys and girls into small velvet pouches to be held at the door for the duration of the event’s four hours. Two bars occupy a lobby which is otherwise kept open for dancing. 

Due to its setting, the hotel is less polished, but rather takes on a more bare-bones look, halfway between the hotel’s two appearances in the film. Throughout the three hours we are given to roam around the levels of the building which are opened to guest access like acts in a play. We are free to peep into hotel rooms, chat with Dmitri, the vitriolic son of Mdm. Desgoffe-und-Taxis, pay our respects to Mdm. D.G.u.T. with our pink bouquets, attend the reading of her will, or dip our toes in the Roman baths. In the final act, one can scale the Alpine Sudetenwaltz whilst the other guests waltz below. 

On the whole, the production is an extraordinarily faithful adaptation of both set and character. Milling about are about 50 actors, all of whom are loose adaptations of the film’s cast. 

sc logoFor me, they are the key element in this incarnation of the Grand Budapest Hotel. They instigate trouble in many forms, peddle drinks and pastries, and in the final act before the screening, they lead a waltz in the lobby, surrounding the circular concierge desk with a flurry of feathers and patent shoes shined by the crippled shoeshine boy himself. They love causing scenes in the most delightful ways: at one point, the Countess suffers a melodramatic fainting spell in the middle of the lobby.

Secret Cinema gave themselves a challenge when they lobbied to screen this film, but the care with which they produced the eponymous hotel was a privilege to behold. If you are in love with cinematic drama and are keen on living in it for a night, Secret Cinema screenings are the definitive way to see films in London. 

Matinee and evening tickets (£53) are available at secretcinema.org

Secret Cinema presents The Grand Budapest Hotel 
Currently running until 30 March
at a secret location

London, UK

 

Newsletter Sign Up

Upcoming Events

No Calendar Events Found or Calendar not set to Public.

Tweets!