This blog post explores how the boundary between reality and fiction collapses in Wes Anderson’s film ‘Asteroid City’ and how we should interpret its meaning.
The film ‘Asteroid City’ is the latest work by director Wes Anderson, released in 2023. While watching this film, I had numerous thoughts related to its structure and thematic consciousness, leading me to choose it as the subject for this review. Anderson’s unique directing style is always intriguing, and his originality shines through brilliantly in this work as well. His films leave a deep impression on audiences not only through their visual beauty but also through the way the story unfolds.
First, I want to write about my impressions of the structure of ‘Asteroid City’. ‘Asteroid City’ employs a frame narrative structure. The innermost frame contains the play ‘Asteroid City’, which depicts the bizarre events unfolding in the town of ‘Asteroid City’, where a meteorite once fell. The next frame contains a documentary about the production of that play, and the host narrating that documentary forms the final frame. This frame-within-a-frame structure was also used in the director’s previous work, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’. However, unlike ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, where the stories within each frame are clearly distinct, the frames in ‘Asteroid City’ collapse multiple times.
Jones Hall, who plays the play’s protagonist Orgy Stinbeck, fails to understand the play’s content and storms off the stage, while the host accidentally intrudes into the play and delivers his lines. As the film’s frames collapse, the vertical structure of the film feels horizontal. This shift in perception collapses even the fourth wall—the final frame and the barrier between audience and film—achieving a unity between the film’s world and reality. The collapse of the film’s structural depth causes the hierarchy between reality and cinema to crumble. Thus, Wes Anderson presents audiences with a new perspective on the boundary between film and reality through structural experimentation.
What makes this film particularly intriguing is how the blurring of boundaries between reality, film, and fiction creates a sense for the audience that they themselves have become part of the events unfolding on screen. This experience of connecting with the film’s world prompted me to reconsider the relationship between cinema and the real world. It encourages viewing the film’s world not merely as an artificial imitation of reality, but as an independent realm connected to the real world through the screen. This experimental approach by Wes Anderson demonstrates how he expands the medium of film beyond a simple vehicle for storytelling, transforming it into a space for artistic exploration and expression.
This concludes my impressions gained through the structure of ‘Asteroid City’. I gained deep appreciation not only from the film’s structure but also from its content. The protagonist of the play ‘Asteroid City’, Augie Steinbeck, is deeply grieving after losing his wife. However, beyond his wife’s death, another element exists within Augie Steinbeck’s grief: the loss of meaning in life. After his wife’s death, Augie Steinbeck loses even the meaning of life and sinks into profound nihilism.
This loss of meaning in life extends to Jones Hall, the actor portraying Eugeen Steinbeck. Jones Hall fails to understand the actions of the character he plays, Eugeen Stineback, or the meaning of the play ‘Asteroid City’. He asks Conrad, the playwright who created the world of the play, and Schubert, the director who can be seen as the priest of that world, about Eugeen’s actions and the play’s meaning, but neither can provide an answer. In fact, upon hearing Jones’ words, Conrad, the creator, seems to understand the actions of his creation, Eugeen, for the first time. Neither the god who created the world nor the priest who embodies divine will and providence can explain the meaning of the creature’s actions or the events within the world.
The person who provided the answer to Jones, and ultimately to Uggy, was the actress who played the role of Uggy’s deceased wife in the play. Jones, unable to comprehend the play, runs off the stage and encounters the actress who played his wife at a window. Afterwards, the two discuss a deleted scene from the play where Eogi, who has gone to the stars in a dream, meets and converses with his dead wife. Because this scene was cut, the actress no longer appears in the play, meaning the two actors are effectively strangers. Yet their conversation resembles the reunion of two lovers parted long ago, evoking a strange longing.
In this conversation, they recite lines that were never included in the play. Composed of a dialogue between Eogi and his deceased wife, these lines speak of Eogi’s love—his wife, his children, and photographs. Hearing this, Jones realizes: the meaning of life as an objective truth never existed in the first place, and yet we must live. Life is about living, entrusting the meaning of life to the things we love, even if they don’t exist. Enlightened, Jones returns to the play, and Eugee regains his happiness. Realizing that life is about believing in what doesn’t exist and assigning meaning to it, Eugee does not stop his young daughters from burying his dead wife’s ashes in Asteroid City. Even if the daughters’ belief that their mother must be buried in Asteroid City is baseless, Eugee can now entrust his wife to their world with peace.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the film tells us to stop contemplating life’s meaning. Rather, like the line “You have to sleep to wake up,” it suggests that even if life’s meaning doesn’t exist, we can live life autonomously through contemplation and anguish about it. This philosophical message prompts audiences to think more deeply about their own lives, offering value beyond simple entertainment.
I applied this insight about life to film itself. Just as Ewing and Jones needn’t seek meaning in the bizarre events of ‘Asteroid City,’ we needn’t believe films carry a director’s explicit intent or message and search for it. Most directors don’t aim to convey something specific to audiences through their films. Creating one’s own interpretations and meanings from a film—a product of the director’s inner expression—is the audience’s responsibility. Therefore, we shouldn’t dismiss a film as obscure or give up on understanding it simply because it doesn’t deliver a clear message. Perhaps the very act of interpreting a film and creating one’s own meaning can offer profound insights into how to live life.
Wes Anderson’s ‘Asteroid City’ is not merely an object of viewing; it is a work that provides an opportunity to reflect on various aspects of our lives and find meaning within them. Through the process of the film’s reality and fiction boundaries collapsing, we too come to feel that we must accept life’s complexity and ambiguity and find our own path within it.
