Closely Watched Trains

Also, there's a Czech film, Closely Watched Trains, which is probably one of my all-time favorite films, which I watched over and over again, and I loved the tone of that. It's so funny, but it's dealing with such serious stuff, and it's so charming, and the characters are so great. So yeah, I tried to keep that lightness, and not to get bogged down in too much melodrama.

Wes Anderson has openly acknowledged that the primary cinematic foundation for his sprawling alpine adventure rests upon the sophisticated comedies of Ernst Lubitsch, particularly The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to Be. Anderson sought to capture the legendary "Lubitsch touch", a remarkably deft, effervescent tone that masks a deeper melancholy regarding the fragility of civilization in the face of fascism. Additionally, the film's intricate tracking shots and sweeping romantic fatalism draw heavily from the elegant camera movements found in Max Ophüls's The Earrings of Madame de.... By channeling these exact works, Anderson crafted a vibrant love letter to a bygone era of European elegance that was largely preserved only in the amber of classical cinema.