Moonrise Memories

Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is the singular stylist's greatest film, a portrait of star-cross'd pre-teen runaways, fleeing into a shared romantic fantasy in which their imaginary world stands as a perfect symbol of Anderson's aesthetic. It also plays as his most personal picture, dedicated to his girlfriend, the writer Juman Malouf.

“I wanted to make a movie that was from the point-of-view of children – but not necessarily a children's film – about two twelve-year-olds who fall in love and take it very seriously,” the 43-year-old, Texan-born filmmaker explains. “I was hoping if we could make this relationship feel authentic, have these scenes feel like they were really happening, that maybe people would see something they haven't seen in too many movies but that they recognise from their own lives. I was trying to see if I could recreate my own memories.”

Anderson has specific memories from when he was 12: his obsession with Supertramp's Breakfast In America LP; the hugely-influential spell cast by Susan Cooper's young-adult book series, The Dark Is Rising, and the Mardi Gras beads he caught, on a family holiday to New Orleans, that he thought had talismanic, magical powers. He also remembers an 'atmosphere', an enveloping fantasy life that tinged his existence, and how he felt desperately lovelorn for the idea of love. “The idea of a romantic fantasy seemed almost magical,” he recalls. “I remember how much I wanted these fantasies to be real.”

That sense of desperation is carried over into his two main characters, who want their runaway fantasies to be real so intently that they think little of the repercussions of their actions and how it will effect the adults charged with their care. “The children in this story, they know what they want, and they don't think beyond it. They don't think past the next step, of the consequences of their actions, but they are very clear about what they want to happen right now. And the adults really aren't; they're clouded by their own failures and problems. So the children have a much clearer experience.”

When the would-be lovers retreat to an isolated cove that they dub Moonrise Kingdom and haul record players, pet cats and assorted trinkets along with them, it totally suggests Anderson's own art-design-centric approach to movie-making, the way he uses the same typefaces throughout (“I love that typeface!” he gleams, when I mention Futura), and ensures everything is styled just so.

“I like to try and create a world for the story to take place in that's not quite reality,” he explains. “It's a place that I hope the audience has not been to before. And all those little details, to me, they're the ingredients of what this world is made of.”

Anderson claims his singularity of style is decided not just in months of pre-production planning, but during the shoot itself, on a “moment to moment basis”. “I'm constantly faced with these decisions where there's two ways to go about it: I can do it the way I want to do it, or I can do it the way everyone else seems to think is going to work better. It'd probably be smarter to listen to all my collaborators and advisors, but I have a general rule to always do my movies the way I want to do them. If I make the 'wrong' decision, I'd rather see my attempt fail, rather than concede failure before ever even attempting [it].”

Whilst Anderson's singular style has made for a run of remarkable, memorable movies – including Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox – and granted him sainted status with a rabid cult following, he also has plenty of detractors. Anderson is often criticised as being too precious, too whimsical, too fanciful; the Crown Prince of American indie cinema's twee, quirky predilections. Yet, he's hardly the kind of guy to go trawling through comment-threads or fire back on Twitter; internet discourse is, for the Paris-based filmmaker, just “noise”.

“It doesn't really benefit you as a filmmaker at all. To engage too much with what people are saying about your films, or about you, or about their idea of you, is to take you away from your own ideas. It's very narcissistic if you focus on what people are saying about you, and I don't think it actually helps you as a filmmaker or writer or anything like that. It's far healthier to stay your course and do what you believe in.”