Zero and its Many Displays of Nothing: Xenophobia, Depersonalization and the Immigrant Experience in ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’
Wes Anderson’s 2014 feature film “The Grand Budapest Hotel” has cemented itself as a notable piece of history in the world of cinema, historical preservation and cultural critique. The film centers two main characters — the comical, self-important concierge Gustave H, and the peaceful, humble Zero Mustafa — whose mentor-mentee relationship evolves into an unlikely friendship. Zero, a young lobby boy under the tutelage of Gustave, is a refugee escaping a fascist militant occupation in his home nation, which resulted in the violent death of his family. The sociocultural notions that characterize Zero use covert and overt techniques to depict the erasure and depersonalization of non-Aryan immigrants in Holocaust-era Europe (defined here as any time after 1933). Through his film, Anderson successfully experiments with an alternate method of preserving and analyzing the sociocultural dynamics of the continent.
An integral part of understanding what eastern Europe was like during this time is recognizing how certain ethnic minorities and groups were thought of and treated in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Aryan race was considered the superior racial group, while ethnic minorities were deemed substantially inferior by Nazian hierarchies.
Zero is racially ambiguous, but his surname and other aspects of his characterization indicate that he is of Middle Eastern descent—potentially from Iran, Turkey or another Ottoman-managed nation. His surname, Mustafa, originates from the Arabic root name “safa,” which means “to be pure, selected and chosen.” Zero is chosen by Gustave as the lobby boy for the Grand Budapest, a choice that takes him on a journey of upward social mobility and prosperity. When Zero begins to work at the hotel, Gustave claims that the boy’s family, education and work experience have amassed to “zero.” Anderson’s decision to name the character “Zero” could have a double meaning, referring to both the de-personalizing expectations of a service worker, and the experience of immigrants in Holocaust-era Europe.
The film dedicates itself to depicting the struggles immigrants faced during this era. In one scene, Zero and Gustave take a train to the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, when they are approached by two soldiers who ask them for their citizenship documents. While Gustave is able to hand one of the soldiers his passport with little difficulty, Zero harbors a slight look of despair as he turns to retrieve his own documents from his uniform’s breast pocket. Eventually, when he hands over a creased, stamp-covered scrap of paper, the soldier frowns.
“That’s a migratory visa with Stage Three Worker Status. He’s with me,” Gustave tries to explain, but Zero is jerked out of his seat anyway, the officers set on arresting him simply because he’s a “bloody immigrant.”
“Your colleague is stateless,” the soldier responds. To the soldier, Zero is nothing — neither worthy of being referred to by name nor country. The use of the term “stateless” reaffirms that Zero’s ability to make a new life is worthless in a country that doesn’t recognize his origins. Additionally, the soldier’s decision to identify Zero as Gustave’s colleague, identifies him only within the confines of his white employer.
This seems to be an intentional choice by Anderson, to highlight that Zero is positioned only as a “stateless colleague” or an “other” whose identity, life and homeland has been reduced to a tattered sheet of paper and a name that means nothing. The universality of displacement and the concept of an erased homeland offers a potential explanation for why Zero does not have any explicit racial or ethnic characteristics. While his darker facial features, the context of a supposed “fascist regime” in his past and mentions of a village-like living situation adds depth to Zero’s characterization, they do very little to pinpoint Zero’s origins, as these characteristics could be attributed to various Arabic or near Eastern nations.
Critics of the film argue Zero’s character is a harmful caricature of the type of immigrant the Western world views as ideal, similar to stereotypical depictions of other ethnic minorities such as the “mammy” stereotype of black women, which appears in films like Victor Flemming’s “Gone with the Wind” or Jurgis Rudkus in “The Jungle.” These characters are portrayed to be the perfect people of color, who are specifically equipped to accommodate Western-centric needs. Throughout the film, Zero is characterized as the “perfect immigrant”: humble, overly formal, silent, pacifistic, optimistic and hardworking. These are not only the traits preferred for immigrants, but what is expected of them, irrespective of their resources and background. Zero only deviates from these standards when it benefits Gustave, as can be seen when Zero evades commands from prison guards with brash rhetoric in order to help Gustave escape from prison.
The progression of Zero’s experience as an immigrant does continue to serve as a hindrance for both Zero and Gustave, even with Zero’s inoffensive and idyllic characteristics. This is an indication that the portrayal of Zero as a “model minority” was a voluntary move by Anderson to articulate how the expansion of the Nazi regime encouraged division, racial hierarchies and totalitarian-like obedience to the authority figures that enforce them. While the Nazi occupation did perpetuate these concepts, the idea of whiteness and Eurocentricity as an aspirational line of ancestry predates events like the Holocaust.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” also centers around the past, specifically 5–10 years before 1933, when the Holocaust officially began. When creating the film, Anderson took inspiration from the literary works of Stefan Zewig, an Austro-Hungarian author raised by a Jewish family. Anderson drew from the work of Zewig in the anachronistic tone of his characters and the degradation of a pure, classical Europe. Growing nostalgic for pre-Nazi-era Europe, Zewig believed that the Nazi occupation was “destroying the spirit and essence” of the continent. The film makes a point to yearn for Europe’s former glory, the way Gustave and Zewig had once done. As a result it mourns a white-centric Republic, revealing that individuals like Zewig had considered the true essence of Europe to be whiteness as an entity, a worldview and a practice.
Apart from pure dialogue and scene-setting, more implicit techniques like the film’s score also highlight the significance of Zero’s experience. The soundtrack has two pieces that specifically refer to Zero — “The Lobby Boy” and “The War (Zero’s Theme).”
“The Lobby Boy” is generic, almost mirroring the whimsical and symmetrical nature of the visuals and dialogue in the film. “The War,” on the other hand, is played at the point of the film that Zero confesses that he is a refugee to Gustave. The song employs classical string instruments like the violin, and a more stagnant tempo. The tone of the song is not necessarily solemn, but transitional; the sounds don’t show signs of distortion or post-production manipulation, but rather a natural, solemn beauty. This symbolizes Zero’s transition from immigrant to refugee in Gustave’s eyes, with the latter identity meaning more to him as an expatriate and a minority — continuing their separate journeys as refugees from the conventions of Western culture.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a story within a story, one that mimics and reflects on Holocaust-era Europe from various avenues and is able to resonate with people from many walks of life. The xenophobia, discrimination and expectations that Zero faces ultimately minimize his personhood, creating distance between his existence in relation to the people and places around him. With this understanding, Zero is a “stand-in” for millions of non-Aryan immigrants and ethnic minorities that were targeted by the Nazi occupation at this time, and acts as a microcosm for non-white refugees and an anthropomorphic metaphor for the struggles of statelessness and exile.
