Let's Communicate

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Well, hiya. It’s been a while since I sent one of these, and there was good reason, too. In January I landed the biggest pitch of my lifetime and assumed I’d hold off on a newsletter until that piece was live. It is not yet live. It likely will be, at some point, but surrendering my creative output to waiting for a thing to publish was, well, exhilarating. I read a lot, I played a lot of video games, I started playing basketball in the park. And then I saw a pesky movie that made me think and, well, here we are. Time makes fools of us all.

Other writing:

• The Carbon-Steel Pans That Replaced All My Nonstick Cookware at Bon Appetit

• The cure for aesthetic convergence at Tone Madison

• Fine dining for the masses at Tone Madison

• Fresh pasta meditations at Tone Madison

• No One Gets A Holiday Fom Death at Bright Wall/Dark Room

Covering the gap

On one level, The Phoenician Scheme suggests that all men seek absolution. On another, it suggests that some men (Uncle Nubar, namely) very much do not. Then again, to what degree does absolution exist? 

The film takes the perspective of Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro), an unethical businessman from a family of arms dealers, as he attempts to finance his latest plan: an infrastructure overhaul of an imaginary country named after an ancient group of people along the eastern Mediterranean Sea. There is a certain assumption made by the movie, as well: the scheme is, overall, a good thing, even if the proposed methods of getting there are a bad thing. To achieve his ends, Korda asserts that he’s created famine to generate the conditions needed to source the slave labor required to build everything he’s planned. By the end of the film, Korda acquiesces: the famine will be ended; the slaves will be paid, and the scheme will be funded by his own vast fortune as a method of atonement. Besides, as Korda states, he believes the slaves were to be paid a small stipend, anyway.

The joke there is a good one: paying slaves a small stipend is antithetical to the concept of slavery itself, revealing a flexibility to Korda’s character and his penchant for making deals to keep all parties engaged and happy. Korda’s concession of the small stipend comes directly after criticism of his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton) who he desperately wants to connect with (even if she isn’t actually his daughter). On his own, he doesn't mind slave labor. Mild pushback, and he’s ready to shift his convictions, even if just in lip service only. That his estranged daughter is on the path to becoming a nun is only further motivation for Korda: he might not believe in God, but that doesn’t stop him from envisioning his own judgment every time he has a near-death experience. The God of his visions does not entertain Korda’s bargain-making, either. “It’s damnable,” God says when Korda asks about slavery in the bible.

The Phonecian Scheme isn’t concerned with whether or not the absolution being pursued is real: religion and God are ever present in the dialogue and Korda’s hallucinations, but the worldly effects of divine power are just as easily chalked up to dumb luck paired with grit and determination. Survived plane crashes, a magical half-court basketball shot, a bullet being slowed down by diplomatic papers in a breast pocket—none of these acts have a distinct biblical touch on the screen. To that end, the absolution that Korda seeks is theoretical: he doesn’t want to go to hell if he can help it, but it’s not clear he actually believes in hell. He also has numerous screws and bolts in his brain from surviving six (soon to be seven) plane crashes, suggesting his visions of God and dead relatives might be symptoms of brain damage. It’s not clear that Korda acquires absolution for his atonement, even after his late-stage conversion to Catholicism. After surrendering his fortune, he lives in a squalid apartment with his ten children and runs a busy, cramped restaurant where he serves dinner to his old butler. The audience doesn’t know if his soul has been saved, but he does have a relationship with his daughter and sons and now lives a somewhat pious life compared to his old ways. 

For Korda’s absolution to manifest, The Phoenician Scheme assumes that foreign investment driving modernization in the Middle East is a good thing. Korda relinquishes his fortune as atonement, but the audience doesn't get to see whether that atonement has a positive impact on the Phoenicians themselves. It’s assumed that if Korda relinquishes his fortune to complete the scheme, the boats and trains and hydroelectric dams will be progress for the people of this underdeveloped nation. But this film isn’t concerned about colonialism, it’s concerned about one man’s soul and what redemption is for him.  

Wes Anderson’s political presentation has always been wrapped in a version of small-c conservatism, a yearning for an older world that had more beauty and mysticism than our modern one. But the details of Anderson’s political beliefs are thorny at best. When Michael Cera’s Bjorn drops his act and reveals his bad-boy American self, he describes himself as a moderate conservative. His goofy accent is gone, his sex appeal has dramatically increased in Liel’s eyes, and in some ways, he plays out the rest of the movie as a hero. However, Richard Ayoade’s jungle revolutionary communist forces are depicted in a romantic light, even if they are bumbling and misguided most of the time. There’s inherent good behind their robberies, suggesting that yearning for a better world isn’t foolish even if some of your comrades are. In this film, Anderson seems uninterested in presenting his ideal political ideology and more concerned with whether or not it matters to even have one. Korda seeking absolution is truly an exercise in Wes Anderson pondering what absolution might be if there’s no one right way to live. 

In this light, The Phoenecian Scheme is a revisionist morality play. There are definite hardline good and evil stances one can take (creating famine, slavery), but the rest of it is all sort of a gray area. How does one square the concept of suffering in the world when their love for period-specific California sportswear is an unshakeable top priority for two characters with a combined 10 minutes of screen time? How much good can the morality of a movie portray when it cost $30 million to make? How does one of the most ontologically evil men of industry ever redeem himself? 

I’m not sure he can. And I don’t think this movie suggests he does, either. Korda surrenders his fortune to complete a business deal that’s designed to generate untold wealth for a handful of captains of industry over 150 years. The suffering of the famine is never seen on screen, therefore, its relief is entirely theoretical. The big picture never comes together: in fact, the closest thing we have to it (a working model) is blown up by Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his errant grenade antics. In a world in which one man’s ruthless dealings set the entire planet against him, the best you can hope for is a quiet life where not doing evil is as good as you’re going to get. Korda isn’t volunteering at a soup kitchen; he’s a small business owner of some renown. Sure he’s dropped station, but none of the main characters are set to take vows of poverty—even Liesl as a nun-in-training. 

The entire film is built around a resigned worldview. The Phoenician Scheme suggests that active revolt and utopian dreams are plausible for some, but then again, for others, life as the petite bourgeoisie is just as admirable. If anything, The Phoenician Scheme is a movie about reserving judgment. When God himself offers you the ol’ “pick a hand” game to determine your fate, there’s clearly a hesitation to concede absolutes in the world of this film. And if there are no absolutes, there cannot be absolution—no matter how hard one man may seek it. 

Read

• The Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson

Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive are three incredibly written, thoughtful pieces of speculative fiction. As much as Gibson predicts most of the future with these three novels and creates the concept of “cyberpunk,” the world he presents is ugly, terrifying, brutal, and vapid. It’s a strange setting crafted with traditional literary techniques that drives through the questions of what the Internet is and how artificial intelligence might come to be. Forty years later, these ideas are more relevant than they ever have been.

Watch

• Andor Season 2 on Disney+

Andor is an odd show, and season two struggles with condensing a broader timeline into a single story—but what an incredible piece of art. It’s hard to describe just how terrifically human the whole thing is, and how raw it makes you feel while watching it. Sure it’s a show about space and spacemen, but allegory conveys real life better than reality ever could.

Listen

• “The Great Shrimp Off” from The Doughboys Podcast

Eight years ago, Nick and Mitch recorded a live podcast episode at Red Lobster with Sean and Hayes from Hollywood Handbook. What ensues is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, including Nick saying he’s going to order a cup of soup before the all-you-can-eat shrimp contest between the four of them.

Consume

• The Best Carne Asada Recipe at Serious Eats

Every once in a while you stumble on a recipe that’s so easy to make and yet the flavor profile is more incredible than you could ever imagine. The marinade/salsa in this recipe requires a few specific ingredients but comes together in a snap, the cook on the steak is simple, and the reward is incredible. It’s worth putting together if you eat meat.

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here.