One might not think that Fantastic Mr. Fox and Band of Outsiders can be compared.  However, the two are more alike than one might think.  Wes Anderson, francophile and American film director thoroughly inspired by the French New Wave, has always had his own unique approach to filmmaking.  While he grabs inspiration from the titans of the French new wave, he manages to create a world that is entirely his own.  With Fantastic Mr. Fox, he creates a direct look into the world of a fox with a lust for crime.  Jean Luc Godard’s Band of Outsiders, taking inspiration from American gangster films of the time, also finds a way to create a unique perspective- one that isn’t entirely gangster but more, as Godard put it, “Alice in Wonderland.” While Fantastic Mr. Fox is not necessarily a play on a classic American gangster film, it can be compared to the classic Band of Outsiders due to its use of classic French New wave techniques.  Fantastic Mr. Fox and Band of Outsiders overlap in their use of heist related plotlines and in the use of quirky characters, fast paced dialogue and narration.   The films both blur the lines between fantasy and reality in different ways.  This fantastic realism doesn’t attack nor glorify the thieving nature of the main characters but instead, the films are able to show the human side of these characters, whether they be actual humans or a small fox. 

Wes Anderson is known for his quirky, intricately symmetrical style of filming, as well as having characters and plots that make absolutely no sense and yet are both perfectly aligned in every way.  Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was released in 2009, is very much, above anything else, a Wes Anderson film.  It includes all of his quirks and style choices, from intense symmetry to playful narration.  Although it’s not in Anderson’s typical medium (the film uses stop motion animation and puppetry) it still brings that sense of wonder and curiosity that comes with other Anderson films, as well as a sense of wonder that comes with films from the French new wave era.  The film is an adaptation of the story with the same title by the acclaimed children’s author Roald Dahl.  A thieving fox feeds his family by stealing from three farmers that live nearby: Boogus, Bunce and Bean.  After growing tired from constantly getting stolen from, the farmers plan to kill the fox, but don’t end up succeeding.  So, they dig into the tree that he lives in, creating a monstrous hole in the ground, in their attempts to find him.  The fox outsmarts the farmers and ends up digging beneath the ground and tunneling through to the farms from below.  Of course, the Roald Dahl story was made for children.  Wes Anderson creates a world in which Mr. Fox (played by George Clooney) is essentially going through a midlife crisis, and creates a heist-like plan to steal from the farmers once more, in order to relive his youthful glory days as a thief.   Jean-Luc Goddard, a huge inspiration for Anderson and a major filmmaker part of the French new wave, directed Band of Outsiders in 1964.  Also based on a book adaptation (Fools Gold by Dolores Hitches), the film centers around three people, two men and a woman, who plan to commit a robbery and run away.  Things don’t go according to plan and the robbery ends in an awkward half failure, in which one of the three die in a shootout and the other two escape to South America and fall in love.  While Godard’s films “have consistently tested this relationship by rejecting narrative in favor of praxis, the working out of social or political theory within the cinematic process,” Band of Outsiders creates a blur between fantasy and reality, uncommon for his other films. 

Both films deal with elements of the fantastical and the realistic.  French New Wave is known for realism, as most of the time the audience is constantly reminded “that we are watching a film, and not the reality that a film inevitably resembles, by calling attention to their “filmicness”—that is, to their artificially created nature.”  Realism can be seen in both films, just as fantasy and exaggeration of story can be seen in both films as well.   In Fantastic Mr. Fox, the story itself is absurd, similar to most Wes Anderson films.  By working in a different medium, Anderson creates an even more fantastical setting.  Realism blends in the fantasy however, almost seamlessly.  The foxes, just like ordinary foxes, live in nature.  These foxes happen to live in a forest by a tree in what appears to be the English countryside.  There’s an odd sense of fantastic realism that comes from simply watching these foxes go about everyday life in their little human-like home.  They have a kitchen and a dining table, a troubled teen son who wants nothing to do with them, and financial problems.  Mr. Fox, the father, is plagued with what appears to be a midlife crisis considering that he is “seven non-fox years old” and that his “father died at seven and a half.” He wants more from his life, which is so absurd given the fact that he is in fact a small fox who used to steal chickens for a living.  What more could a fox want?  There’s definitely a sense of realism with the midlife crisis however, as many fathers who are “seven non-fox years old” might struggle with something similar.  It creates an interesting tone and dynamic between characters, as they are trying to prove their humanness while fighting against their animalistic nature.  This is one of the major points of the film.   Mr. Fox’s need to steal chickens again, after years of not doing so, is portrayed as something much less absurd than a fox having a midlife crisis.  Fantastic Mr. Fox deals with the concept of existentialism and survival, which is a very realistic approach to the story.  The French new wave was all about realism to the highest degree, even going so far to use non-actors and filming directly on location for a more realistic feel.  Mr. Fox steals because, as he puts it, he’s a “wild animal.”  He steals because it’s in his nature to steal as a fox.  Anderson creates the concept that while Mr. Fox may have an animalistic urge to steal, he also has to realize that he’s not entirely animal in this particular telling of the story.  About halfway through the film, once the three farmers have chased the foxes into the ground, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) has a talk with her husband, and explains that along with being a wild animal, he is also a husband and a father.   He can’t run away from that fact, even if it’s in a fox’s nature to steal.  

In Band of Outsiders, the environment created in the film seems to be a perfect mix of reality and fantasy.  While Fantastic Mr. Fox deals with realistic elements in a fantastical environment, Band of Outsiders deals with fantastical elements in a realistic setting.  To begin with, the reason for the heist in the first place is relatively unclear, although it becomes apparent that the characters are fueled by Goddard’s obsession with American gangster films.  Goddard casts himself as the narrator, inserting bits of self awareness common for the French new wave.  He calls attention to the fact that he is referring to gangster movies as he describes the characters as they wait to begin their plan, “Arthur said they’d wait till nightfall, in keeping with the tradition of bad B movies.”  They seem to be in their own world most of the time, planning a dangerous heist while dancing in a cafe and running through the Louvre in record time.  It almost seems as if nothing is as serious as it appears.  Instead, they have time to run through the Louvre in record time for no apparent reason.  There’s a sense of absurdity that begins to brew as the film goes on.  Godard takes his audience in and out of a fantastical world to remind them of realism of the situation.  For example, their world comes crumbling down when they realize how serious it all is, and when one of them dies during the heist.  It’s very real to both Odile and Franz that their friend Arthur is dying by the hands of his crazed money-hungry uncle.  And yet, Arthur's death is greatly exaggerated to remind the audience that they are in fact watching a movie, and that none of it is real.  Arthur takes a good few minutes to finally die, as he stumbles in and out of consciousness before eventually rolling to his death.  The fantasy builds back up for the ending, when Goddard narrates: “My story ends here, like in a pulp novel, at that superb moment when nothing weakens, nothing wears away, nothing wanes. An upcoming film will reveal, in CinemaScope and Technicolor, the tropical adventures of Odile and Franz.”  It leads the audience to believe, was it all a fantasy?  Or was it perhaps, more real than we suspected? This removal from the fantasy happens again during the iconic dance sequence, in which everything seems fine and dandy, but the characters have their own thoughts in their minds.  The narrator proclaims that “Franz thinks of everything and nothing. He wonders if the world is becoming a dream or if the dream is becoming a world.”  The characters begin sinking in between fantasy and reality, as does the audience, but the audience has the advantage of being pulled out of the fantasy with quips from the narrator: “Now it is time for a digression in which to describe our heroes’ feelings.” 

Wes Anderson makes Fantastic Mr. Fox into a unique story, adding a sense of wonder to an ultra realistic slice of life.  Godard took his love for American gangster movies and created Band of Outsiders, an oddly magical film about a heist gone wrong, on account of daydreaming and playfulness.  It’s clear that Anderson was inspired not just by the technicalities of the French new wave, but also the storytelling.  The films blend together different parts of the French new wave, from the realistic to the surreal.  From that blend, both directors manage to create human moments amongst the quirkiness of the stories being told.  Despite the odd in between of fantasy and realism, human moments make themselves clear when a pair of friends are troubled with sadness when watching their friend die at the hands of his uncle.   Human moments make themselves clear when a fox, who is so much more than just a fox, changes for his family.