KT 119: The Phoenician Scheme
Ravi Boltman on Wes' latest outing.
The Phoenician's Scheme
Wes Anderson, 2025
Classification: M
DCP Courtesy: Universal
Words by Ravi Boltman
Since the pandemic, Wes Anderson’s films have rarely ventured outside the comfort of studio sets. Arguably this suits his demand for control, giving us unadulterated Andersonian style. However, when looking back at his earlier works, filmed on real locations, there is a tension between what Anderson feels, and what the rest of us see, that is sorely missed in The Phoenician Scheme. The film is an unfortunate example of the pitfalls of absolute artistic authority. While usually intoxicating, Anderson’s style here is suffocating.
Benicio del Toro is Zsa-zsa Korda, a derring-doing millionaire who has survived six plane crashes and fathered nine sons and one daughter, a nun called Liesel (Mia Threapleton). Zsa-Zsa pairs up with his tutor Bjorn Lund (Michael Cera), on a quest to secure the future of Korda’s business ventures, but quickly the unlikely trio become targets of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins.
While Anderson increasingly encloses his film productions within studios, the stories have also become enshrouded within their own consanguineous design: i.e. stories within novels, articles within magazines, plays within televised plays, business deals within shoeboxes. Contrary to the belief that this narrative framework inspires coldness, these acknowledgments of fiction can disarm us while heightening moments of emotional impact. In Asteroid City Jason Schwartzman (a conspicuous absence in Phoenician Scheme) walks off the set of the film, which is really a play, to ask the architect of its making (Adrian Brody) whether he’s really selling the pathos of his character. This scenario seems like it would take you out of the moment - it probably does for some. But those used to Anderson’s fondness for the metatextual, it only elevates the character’s realness - somehow.
The semi-metatextual black & white gates of heaven sequences were formally and emotionally sincere, no doubt because it is a direct cue to Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Other such instances are few and far between.
It does not seem to be a coldness, but a pure neglect of emotional stakes that permeates The Phoenician Scheme. Albeit a reflection of Korda’s character, it is a tiresome foible to be around, only rarely containing enough self-awareness to be funny. There is a scene where Bjorn finds a stick of ticking dynamite in the cockpit of the plane, due to explode eight minutes after landing. “Leave it there,” Korda says
In a film that is already forced, the bluntly-stated and overly rehearsed strain of the dynamic of Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera can exhaust their scenes of any whimsy we might expect to find in an Anderson film.
Despite its shortcomings, The Phoenician Scheme is at least Anderson’s most politically active film in years. Korda in many ways is a typical Anderson patriarch: devious, suave and a compulsive liar. And, Anderson’s return to middle-Europe is exciting to the many of us who hold Ralph Fiennes’ M. Gustave in their hearts and perfume bottles. But unlike Gustave, who is escaping a fascist regime, Korda runs from his own immorality. He is labelled from the beginning as a terrible global tyrant who is complicit in slave labour, environmental destruction, extortion, tax and tariff evasion – quite a serious list if it wasn’t so long.
Looming political sabotage sends Korda off to jet-set around ancient Phoenicia. “I am not a citizen,” he says. Korda’s home is a permanent construction site. His mansion is cold and starkly bare.
But there is something behind Korda’s statelessness beyond a fed-up US government. Buried beneath the pyramid of scheming is another story: a tale of brothers. A fraternal struggle as old as time. Zsa-zsa and his brother Nuba are in the business of arms and armoury, often used against each other. Christianity arrives in Liesl, the nun, who attempts to bring a feminine force of forgiveness and salvation to these biblical brothers. At the credits, the nun remains uncertain which of them is her father - Judaism or Islam? Anderson has always made films about family and here he presents an analogy of the pitfalls of monolithic religion and its entangled fraternal roots. And it’s poignant that The Phoenician Scheme is set only three years after the partition of Palestine.
The film’s constant transit is its biggest limitation: there is too little time spent in each location. Anderson’s forte is the vividness of his settings. They are travel films, even if they exist only as representations; “One can feel nostalgia for places one has never seen.” In The Phoenician Scheme, Korda feels no nostalgia: every plane, painting and telephone is but an asset, to be transacted if the situation requires it. An elegant telephone is just a telephone without a connection to how this object might exist outside of its use for Korda. The most memorable object in the film is the bejewelled pipe he gives Liesl, for which he has no use. What audiences love about Anderson’s films is his sensibility for a world where design comes before practicality. For this reason, The Phoenician Scheme will inspire little imitation (by Anderson’s standards), unless the price of cigars comes down.
In 2018, Anderson and his partner, author and illustrator Juman Malouf, curated a large exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures, showcased over 400 objects, but Anderson’s knowledge about ancient Egyptian artifacts was not felt. Max L. Feldman, a writer and art critic in Vienna, said, that “Anderson and Malouf [chose], however, to say nothing about the colonial history of museum acquisition.”
Anderson is ambitious beyond belief in this race around the globe crime farce with a snarky manbaby and political intention. Whatever his vision, the projection is surface level.
“Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf to Curate Show in Vienna.” 2018. Frieze.com. May 27, 2025. https://www.frieze.com/article/wes-anderson-and-juman-malouf-curate-show-vienna.
LISTINGS
THU 19 JUN - WED 25 JUN (A-Z by Cinema)
Festivals
New Films in Release
One to One: John and Yoko
Kevin Macdonald & Sam Rice-Edwards, 2024
Screening Daily
Jane Austen Wrecked my Life
Laura Piani, 2025
Screening Daily
Focus on Queer 中文 Cinema
Frozen Out
Hao Zhou, 2021
+
Wegen Hegel
Popo Fan, 2023
Screening Thu 19 June
The Wedding Banquet
Ang Lee, 1993
Screening Thu 19 June and Tue 24 June
Happy Together
Wong Kar Wai, 1997
Screening Fri
Saving Face
Alice Wu, 2004
Screening Sat 21 June
The Two Lives of Li Ermao
Jia Yuchuan, 2019
Screening Sat 21 June
Queer China, 'Comrade' China
Cui Zi'en, 2009
Screening Mon 23 June
Matinees
Universal Language
Matthew Rankin, 2024
Screening Fri, Sat, Sun
No screening this week
7:30pm Tuesday 24 June 2025
The Brunswick Green, 313/315 Sydney Road, Brunswick.
16mm projection. $10 on the door.
Inside Outside (Hanna Chetwin)
2024, 8 mins.
We Aim to Please (Margot Nash and Robin Laurie)
1976, 13 mins.
Serious Undertakings (Helen Grace)
1983, 28 mins.
Nice Coloured Girls (Tracey Moffatt)
1987, 16 mins.
Wayne’s World with Tia Carrere Live
Penelope Spheeris, 1992
Screening Thursday
One to One: John and Yoko
Kevin Macdonald & Sam Rice-Edwards, 2024
Screening almost daily
Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino, 2008
Screening Friday
Sinners
Ryan Coogler, 2025
+
Malignant
James Wan, 2021
Screening Sat June 21 from 7pm
Ran
Akira Kurosawa, 1985
Screening Sun
Unforgiven
Clint Eastwood, 1992
+
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
John Huston, 1948
Screening Monday 23 June from 7pm
The Phantom with Billy Zane Live
Simon Wincer, 1992
Screening Tuesday
Nature, the Call for Reconciliation
Yann Arthus-Bertrand, 2025
Screening Wednesday
BBBC CINEMA (GALLERYGALLERY BRUNSWICK)
Surprise Screening (Introduced by film critic Philippa Hawker)!
Screening Sunday 6:30pm
Jesse James
Henry King & Irving Cummings, 1939
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THE CAPITOL
The Capitol Theatre Orchestra
My Fair Lady
George Cukor, 1964
Screening Sat 21 June
Elio
Adrian Molina, Domee Shi & Madeline Sharafian, 2025
Screening Daily
How to Train Your Dragon (Chinese Sub)
Dean DeBlois, 2025
Screening Daily
Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning (Chinese Subtitles)
Christopher McQuarrie, 2025
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Lilo & Stich
Dean Fleischer Camp, 2025
Screening almost daily
No screening this week
No screening this week
Film Club
The Shrouds
David Cronenberg, 2024
Screening Tuesday
In the Rear View
The Doom Generation
Gregg Araki, 1995
Screening Fri, Sun, Tue & Mon
Akira
Katsuhiro Ôtomo, 1988
Screening Sat, Sun & Mon
Carol
Todd Haynes, 2015
Screening Daily exc. Mon
Midsommar: The Director’s Cut
Ari Aster, 2019
Screening Tuesday
The Abyss
James Cameron, 1989
Screening Tuesday
What The Fest
Scala!!!
Jane Giles, Ali Catterall, 2023
Screening Friday
Gazer
Ryan Sloan, 2024
Screening Thursday
The Vanishing
George Sluizer, 1988
Screening Monday
The Piano Teacher
Michael Haneke, 2001
Screening Monday
The Holy Mountain
Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973
Screening Monday
Enter the Void
Gaspar Noé, 2009
Screening Wednesday
El Topo
Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970
Screening Tuesday
The Thing
John Carpenter, 1982
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Tears of the Black Tiger
Wisit Sasanatieng, 2000
Screening Tuesday
Crash
David Cronenberg, 1996
Screening Fri & Wed
The Blob
Irvin Yeaworth, 1958
Screening Thursday
New Release
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle, 2025
Screening Daily
Materialists
Celine Song, 2025
Screening Daily
Ellis Park
Justin Kurzel, 2025
Screening Daily
Bring Her Back
Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou, 2025
Screening Fri-Wed & Thu
The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson, 2025
Screening Daily
Universal Language
Matthew Rankin, 2024
Screening Daily
Wilding
David Allen, 2023
Screening Daily
The Surfer
Lorcan Finnegan, 2025
Screening Daily
The Salt Path
Marianne Elliott, 2024
Screening Daily
La Cocina
Alonso Ruizpalacios, 2025
Screening Daily
The Wedding Banquet
Andrew Ahn, 2025
Screening Daily
Ocean with David Attenborough
Mehdi Idir & Grand Corps Malade, 2024
Screening Daily
Sinners
Ryan Coogler, 2025
Screening Daily
Tinā (Mother)
Miki Magasiva, 2025
Screening Daily
Crossing
Levan Akin, 2024
Screening Daily
Small Things Like These
Tim Mielants, 2025
Screening Daily (exc Sunday)
Warfare
Ray Mendoza & Alex Garland, 2025
Screening Daily
Last days of every other film, probably, see calendar
DOGMILK DEGUSTATIONS
Details to come soon!
No screening this week
GAY24 (Bar Flippy’s)
Sex, Lies, Religion
Annette Kennerley, 1993
+
Bondage
Monika Treut, 1983
+
Lasting Marks
Charlie Shackleton, 2018
+
Tribute
Max Disgrace, 2017
Screening Wednesday June 25
Updates on upcoming Gay24 screenings via instagram.
No screening this week
To see all events, click here.
Robert Altman: A Centenary Retrospective
The Long Goodbye
Robert Altman, 1973
Screening Thursday
General Release
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle, 2025
Screening Daily
Materialists
Celine Song, 2025
Screening Daily
Dangerous Animals
Sean Byrne, 2025
Screening Daily
How to Train Your Dragon
Dean DeBlois, 2025
Screening Daily
The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson, 2025
Screening Daily
Karate Kid: Legends
Jonathan Entwistle, 2025
Screening daily
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina
Len Wiseman, 2025
Screening daily
The Salt Path
Marianne Elliott, 2024
Screening Daily
Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning
Christopher McQuarrie, 2025
Opening on Sat 17
Sinners
Ryan Coogler, 2025
Screening at most cinemas.
Thunderbolts
Jake Schreier, 2025
Screening Daily
PALACE BALWYN / BRIGHTON / COMO / KINO / PENTRIDGE / MOONEE PONDS / WESTGARTH
Events / Previews
Upcoming Spanish Film Festival, visit here.
General Release
Jane Austen Wrecked my Life
Laura Piani, 2025
Screening Daily
Materialists
Celine Song, 2025
Screening Daily
The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson, 2025
Screening Daily
Dangerous Animals
Sean Byrne, 2025
Screening Daily
Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning
Christopher McQuarrie, 2025
Screening Daily
Bring Her Back
Danny and Michael Philippou, 2025
Screening Daily
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina
Len Wiseman, 2025
Screening daily
Sinners
Ryan Coogler, 2025
Screening at most cinemas.
Karate Kid: Legends
Jonathan Entwistle, 2025
Screening daily
Between shows.
JUNE 28: Join us five encore screenings of previously sold out sessions, beloved by the BUFF team and audiences alike!!
Come on down to static vision HQ (47 Melville Road, Brunswick West), Saturday June 28 for a killer line-up, consisting of:
- Wanda (dir. Barbara Loden)
- The Owls (dir. Cheryl Dunye)
- Desert Hearts (dir. Donna Deitch)
- Cuddly Toys (dir. Kansas Bowling)
- The Lost Sex Films Of King's Cross (dir. George and Charis Schwarz)
~
Location: static vision HQ, 47 Melville Road, Brunswick West
Date: Saturday, June 28
Time: 12pm-10pm
Day pass: $65/$55
Individual tix: $17.50/$15
THE MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE (ACMI)
REBELLIOUS MUSE: Delphine Seyrig as Actor, Director and Activist
India Song
Margeurite Duras, 1975
Screening from 7pm
+
Baxter, Vera Baxter
Margeurite Duras, 1977
Screening from 9:15pm
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle, 2025
Screening Daily
Materialists
Celine Song, 2025
Screening Daily
Ocean with David Attenborough
Mehdi Idir & Grand Corps Malade, 2024
Screening Wednesday
One to One: John and Yoko
Kevin Macdonald & Sam Rice-Edwards, 2024
Screening Fri, Sat, Sun & Wed
UNKNOWN PLEASURES @ Thornbury Picture House
No screening this week