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The legendary filmmaker Brian De Palma once said most directors do their best work in their 30s, 40s and 50s before they lose their touch. If his theory is true, then at 54, Wes Anderson shows every sign of breaking that rule.

His latest feature, the loopy comedy “Asteroid City,” was arguably his best since “Rushmore” in 1998, and now, only three months later, he has returned with a new collection of four short films on Netflix based on the work of Roald Dahl.

Released from Sept. 27 to 30, the collection features one 39-minute film, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” which also had a limited theatrical release, and three 17-minute films.

Each of the four short films stars a core company of six actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade, Ralph Fiennes and Rupert Friend. No film features all six, but many feature the same actor in multiple roles.

All of the shorts closely follow the original stories they are based on. In each film, characters read aloud from Dahl’s writing to describe scenes as they happen. This choice along with the dollhouse-like sets reflect the increasingly experimental structures and style of Anderson’s two most recent films, “The French Dispatch” and “Asteroid City.”

His command of color, lighting and blocking is so practiced, and his relationships with a core company of actors are so developed that he breathes new life into these century-old stories.

To celebrate their release, here is a list of the short films available now on Netflix, ranked.

4. “Poison”

The fact that a film as good as “Poison” is at the bottom of this list speaks to how strong this entire collection is. “Poison” is thought-provoking and interesting to look at, and the first few minutes are full of Anderson’s signature dry humor. It modulates between humor and dramatic moments less gracefully than “The Swan” or “The Rat Catcher,” but it’s funnier than both at its best.

The film takes place during the British colonization of India and deals with race more seriously than any of Anderon’s prior projects. But the film’s thematic ambition is not supported by the same level of visual audacity that the other three Dahl shorts possess.

“Poison” is the only one of the four shorts where the most inspired moment is not a composition but an exchange of dialogue between Cumberbatch’s white character and Kingsley’s portrayal of an Indian doctor. The stilted speech that Anderson’s actors often use, made even more rigid since their lines are lifted from novels, breaks down into a tense and surprising moment of fury.

Cindy Zhang | Digital Design Director

3. “The Swan”

Based on a news article that Dahl encountered as a young man, “The Swan” is the film that most interestingly plays with the framing device of its characters reading Dahl’s prose. It tells the story of a boy, Peter Watson, who is terrorized by two of his cruel classmates, and is narrated by the adult version of Watson.

Played by Rupert Friend, the adult Watson follows his silent younger self around as the horrors of the day unfold, sometimes trading places with his former self to re-experience the events.

“The Swan” is equally innovative in its visual construction. Anderson’s style is often criticized as airless and overly fussed over, but he continues to embrace that quality in these films like he has in his recent features.

The tall hayfields where the film takes place are, in fact, rigid walls, with doors made of hay that Watson can move through freely. Everything about it is neatly manufactured and choreographed, with new details revealing themselves upon each rewatch.

2. “The Rat Catcher”

Ralph Fiennes is charmingly disgusting as an aloof exterminator in “The Rat Catcher.” He plays an obsessive rat-killing specialist who is called to a small town to deal with an infestation.

The character is beady-eyed and unkempt, preoccupied with outsmarting rodents, but has a whimsical side thanks to his warm-hued costume and delicate mannerisms. His inability to coax out the town’s rat population leads to an outburst of prideful rage that, along with a dark twist ending, makes “The Rat Catcher” a distinctly uneasy experience.

Out of the 17-minute shorts, “The Rat Catcher” features the richest use of color, even for Anderson, whose late style is easily recognizable by his gorgeous pastels. The costumes for all three main characters, particularly Fiennes and the blue-jumpsuited mechanic played by Rupert Friend, are excellently designed.

The yellow and orange autumnal scenery feel like a triumphant live-action retread of “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” as does the use of stop-motion to animate the title character’s rodent foe. None of the shorts feel more perfectly suited for a fall release than this one.

1. “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

“Henry Sugar” isn’t only the best part of this collection by far, it’s among the best things Anderson has ever made. It is the culmination of the director’s past five years spent trimming the unnecessary structural elements of filmmaking from his work.

He is working towards a cinematic world that finds value in artifice, where characters, locations and situations can be freely manipulated or recontextualized on the go in service of core themes. It allows him to stay true to the emotionality of a film — “Henry Sugar” is a beautiful story about the effects of devoting oneself entirely to an art form — while maximizing the expressiveness with which he builds the world around it. He’s not being indulgent; he’s being crafty.

The sets are lushly built and complemented by excellent lighting, which often flickers at the same time as the camera cuts to give the sense of a page turning in a book. Kingsley gives the best performance in the series as an elderly man who trains himself to concentrate so hard he can see without using his eyeballs.

The character’s dialogue proves that Anderson has not lost himself in empty stylistic experimentation. When Kingsley’s doctors are shocked by his powers, he has to reassure them it isn’t a hoax: “This is a genuine thing I’ve managed after years of training.” After saying this, he turns to look right into the camera, as if Anderson is saying that he, himself, can hardly believe what he is accomplishing.

Published on October 2, 2023 at 10:14 pm