Explaining the end of Wes Anderson movie ‘Asteroid City’
In his latest cinematic offering, Wes Anderson serves up a multi-layered narrative populated by an ensemble cast, weaving together the behind-the-scenes production of a play with the play itself – which is, just to make things ultra-complicated, being broadcasted on television. However, it’s not necessarily the sprawling plot of Asteroid City that lingers with the audience. Instead, it’s a powerful scene close to the end where the characters, shattering the fourth wall, collectively echo a transformative phrase directly at the audience: “You can’t wake up if you don’t go to sleep”.
In Asteroid City, Anderson’s triumphant eleventh feature plays out like an intricate thematic tapestry, reflecting on the nature of dreams, vulnerability, and, in our humble opinion, the significance of temporarily detaching from reality. Beyond its meta nature, something else reaches out to us.
Having sat on the film for several weeks, it’s become apparent that this fourth-wall-breaking scene is a critical linchpin in what the director is trying to say. Metaphorically, “you can’t wake up if you don’t go to sleep” encapsulates the essence of the film’s philosophical ethos – perhaps the first time Anderson has been so deliberate in his attempt to broadcast a ‘higher’ message.
Through the communal chant, which begins one cast member at a time, Spartacus-style, before eventually all the characters look the camera right in the eye and direct their mantra right at us, Anderson proposes a profound theory. He suggests that dreaming isn’t merely an act of imagination but actually, a daring endeavour that demands vulnerability and rewards with wisdom.
Let’s break it down a little more. By entering a state of ‘sleep’ or embracing vulnerability, the characters symbolically close themselves off from their immediate realities. However, this state isn’t an escape but rather a passage leading to introspective exploration. In this realm, detached from external stimuli, the characters engage in subconscious wrestling with their existential quandaries – in a way that couldn’t possibly be done without first giving up on being conscious altogether.
As the characters ‘wake up’ from this immersive state of introspection, they are reborn with a richer, deeper comprehension of the universe and their place within it. This awakening isn’t a momentary epiphany but rather a continual process of realisation that deepens with every subsequent retreat into ‘sleep.’ The alien’s arrival serves as a visual embodiment of this particularly abstract concept. The extraterrestrial presence, whose inexplicability stirs chaos and intrigue, prompts the characters to confront the unfamiliar. In doing so, they begin their journey of ‘sleeping’ and ‘waking,’ of retreating and emerging, thereby enhancing their understanding of their lives and their shared reality.
Another moment that encapsulates this is when Jones Hall, the actor portraying Augie Steenbeck in the stage play, has a deep and unsettling moment of introspection. Abruptly leaving the story of Asteroid City, both the play and the actual film, he confronts the director about why his character purposefully burnt his hand. His time acting in the play, disappearing into a fictitious world (a dream, you might say?), has granted him a higher level of curiosity. It leaves him uncomfortable; it even angers him – but his inability to process his character’s objective and his subsequent determination to demand from the director why exemplifies his awakening.
In Asteroid City, Wes Anderson masterfully captures the essence of human introspection and its role in unravelling the enigma of… well, existence. He proposes that to truly ‘wake up’ to the realities of life and the universe, we must first allow ourselves to ‘sleep’. We must dare to dream, be vulnerable, and momentarily close off from reality. In this cycle of retreat and emergence, we develop a profound awareness of the cosmic tapestry. In its final echo, the film insists: to understand, we must first dare to not know.
