Summary
Three days later, we see the prisoners making their break, climbing through the hole they’ve dug in their cell down into a tunnel. They climb down a ladder and almost get caught, but manage to get by. They sneak through bedrooms and saw off bars on the windows, lowering a ladder down the wall of the prison and climbing down one by one into the steam room. When they come upon a room of guards, one of the inmates brutally kills them all with a knife.
We see Zero waiting near a hatch, when suddenly Gustave and the others emerge. A bus drives up and the other convicts run to get on. Zero informs Gustave that he couldn’t find a safe house and he didn’t bring any disguises, much to Gustave’s disappointment. When he finds that Zero forgot his cologne, Gustave goes on an angry tirade against Zero, insulting his home country and finally asking him why he would come there in the first place, to which Zero responds, “the war.” This stops Gustave and Zero continues, “You see my father was murdered and the rest of my family were executed by firing squad. Our village was burned to the ground and those who managed to survive were forced to flee.” Gustave feels remorse, realizing that Zero is a refugee, and apologizes. They hug, and Gustave asks after Agatha, but as Zero recites a poem, an alarm goes off and they have to flee.
We see Henckels emerging from the hole in the escaped convicts’ cell and ordering his men to go searching for them. Suddenly he notices Jopling leering in the back, and speaks to him privately outside the cell. Henckels asks if Jopling knows anything about Kovacs’ murder, but Jopling feigns ignorance. On his way out, Jopling notices a Mendl’s box on the ground and recognizes the bakery.
Zero and Gustave are at a phone booth in the middle of a snow-covered field. Gustave calls someone named Monsieur Ivan, and asks to call upon the services of the Society of the Crossed Keys. Suddenly we see Ivan on the other end of the phone, behind the front desk at another hotel, promising to call Gustave back. Ivan then calls someone named Monsieur Georges at another hotel, who in turn calls Monsieur Dino at another hotel, who then calls Monsieur Robin at another hotel, who then calls Monsieur Martin at another hotel. Martin promises to make a few calls.
Back in the snowy field, Zero and Gustave sit atop a mound of hay, and discuss their plight. Suddenly they see a car approaching; it’s Ivan, who hastily tells them to jump in. In the car, Ivan tells them that Serge is hiding out, but that he is willing to meet the following day at an observatory on top of a mountain in the Remote Foothills. Ivan then hands Gustave a bottle of l’air de panache. Gustave asks Zero to hand over some money for them to give to Ivan as a symbol of their gratitude.
Suddenly, we see Jopling’s desk with a picture of Agatha on it. He’s on the phone with Dmitri, who tells him to go and talk to Serge’s sister again, “and this time, be persuasive.” Dmitri goes into a room of the mansion, where his three sisters are sitting. As he looks through a pile of documents, he notices that the painting over the mantle is missing, having been replaced by the Egon Schiele. He is startled and incensed, and as he begins to yell, the maid, Clotilde, informs him that Gustave stole it. He grabs the Egon Schiele painting and destroys it. Meanwhile, on the train, Gustave and Zero discuss the fact that Serge betrayed them; Gustave calls him “a frightened little yellow-bellied coward. It’s not his fault, is it?” Gustave plans to throttle Serge, he tells Zero, before abruptly changing the topic to the fact that he wants to officiate Agatha and Zero’s wedding. He extols Agatha’s charm and purity, and Zero tells him not to flirt with her. We see Agatha packing a bag, when suddenly she hears thumping on the roof. She climbs up to investigate, but finds nothing.
The next thing we see is a newspaper headline that reads, “Local Girl’s Head Found in Laundry Basket.” Henckels reads it at his desk, when one of the other inspectors informs him that a telegram was found near the body of the girl, which reads, “Pack your things, stop. Be ready to leave at moment’s notice, stop. Hideout is vicinity of Gabelmeister’s Peak, stop. Destroy this message; all my love, full stop.” Henckels asks to see the laundry basket and another inspector brings it in. When he pulls the head out of the laundry basket, it is the head of Serge’s sister. The telegram was evidently from Serge.
The Remote Foothills. Jopling is looking at a blood-stained note, when a pump attendant asks him where he’s headed. Jopling says nothing, gets on his motorcycle, and drives away. In voiceover, Zero Moustafa says that he instructed Agatha to go to their hideout at a gypsy caravan. We see Henckels at the place where Serge, Gustave and Zero are slated to meet, looking into a train car hoping to find them. He cannot find them, but when he sniffs the car, he can smell Gustave’s l’air de panache.
At the observatory, Gustave and Zero wait for Serge, looking out over the Alps. A hooded man comes up to them and tells them to get on the next cable car, which they do. At one point, the cable car stops and another cable car comes up alongside it. Another hooded man in the other cable car peers out the window and instructs Gustave to switch cable cars with him. Zero and Gustave do. They ride that cable car up to a monastery. Yet another hooded man pops his head out of a door and instructs Gustave and Zero to put on monk’s robes and come into the monastery. Inside, the monks sing in pews, and Gustave and Zero take seats with them. A monk sitting next to them tells them to go into confession, which they do.
Analysis
The actual prison break is a whacky and comical affair. The bumbling group of convicts climbing through tunnels and unfurling ladders hearkens back to classic segments by comedians like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. The whole event feels slapstick, like a clown routine, and the inmates wear comically bewildered expressions as they shuffle down ladders and through small spaces. While in a dramatic film, the scene of a prison break might be much more suspenseful or frightening, in the dreamlike universe of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, a prison break is a quainter affair.
Yet again—being an adventure—the caper turns violent at one point. As the convicts make their escape, they come upon a group of prison guards all playing cards around a table. Rather than make a run for it, one of the prisoners jumps down and gets in a violent knife fight with the guards, killing all of them and sacrificing his own life as well. It is a gory moment, yet remains fanciful like the rest of the film. The howls of the men as they die are decidedly theatrical, and they end up in a pile on the floor in their own blood, like children play-acting a sword fight. The lightness of the film's tone cannot be overstated.
One element of the plot that is hardly light is Zero’s backstory. When Zero meets Gustave to help him escape, Gustave is furious to learn that Zero did not bring his favorite cologne, and inexplicably launches into a racist tirade against Zero and against his status as an immigrant. He says, "I suppose this is to be expected back in Aq Salim al-Jabat where one's prized possessions are a stack of filthy carpets and a starving goat, and one sleeps behind a tent flap and survives on wild dates and scarabs. But it's not how I trained you. What on God's earth possessed you to leave the homeland where you obviously belong and travel unspeakable distances to become a penniless immigrant in a refined, highly-cultivated society that, quite frankly, could've gotten along very well without you?" Zero responds to this question straightforwardly, telling Gustave that all of his family members are dead and so he left his country of origin.
After hearing about Zero's tragic story, Gustave is immediately contrite, and apologizes for speaking so insensitively to his young friend. Gustave can only see the cruelty and vitriol of his own words once he realizes that Zero is a refugee, that he had no choice in coming to Europe. Whether Zero is an immigrant or a refugee is quite beside the point, and Gustave's cruelty—all because of a missing bottle of cologne—is harsh and sudden, and seemingly built around a rather racist outlook on empire and civilization. For such a buoyant film, the moment is unusually tense, but soon enough Gustave apologizes to Zero, calling him his "dear friend and protege" and Zero, in true deadpan, hardly seems to mind the outburst.
The plot continues to take the most circuitous and playful routes, and is itself structured like the twisting hallways and hidden corners of a grand hotel. Unusual events lead to even more unusual events, and strangers to other strangers. When Gustave calls for help from a fellow concierge, Monsieur Ivan, Ivan in turn calls another concierge, who calls another, who calls another, who calls another. It is a seemingly endless web of concierges who are ready and waiting to help Gustave in whatever way they can. Similarly, at the location where Gustave and Zero are to meet Serge, a string of hooded monks give the duo clues about where to find the cowardly butler. The movie maintains not only a strong forward momentum, but a pleasingly convoluted narrative logic.
