According to Indiewire, The Grand Budapest Hotel is the best film of the year so far, and Wes Anderson is so saudade.
With 122 critics voting in Indiewire’s second annual mid-year poll of the Criticwire Network, Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” checked in with a strong showing in first place… “Budapest” appeared on nearly 60% of the total ballots…
There was some discussion on Twitter about the appropriateness of this term.
“Wes Anderson is the master of ‘saudade’, the nostalgia for something you never had or that never existed.” What a line (and how accurate)!
— Tanul Thakur (@Plebeian42) June 18, 2014
@plebeian42 @rushmoreacademy Very true – but that’s a stretch of definition of “saudades”
— Jenelle D’Alessandro (@freshgreenbeans) June 18, 2014
@freshgreenbeans I just looked up the word online, and google tells me it can’t be accurately translated to English. + @rushmoreacademy
— Tanul Thakur (@Plebeian42) June 18, 2014
@plebeian42 @rushmoreacademy Saudades = always tied to something once known – longing for what is now gone. Good ref: http://t.co/hLQRqnxqeP
— Jenelle D’Alessandro (@freshgreenbeans) June 18, 2014
@freshgreenbeans @rushmoreacademy @Plebeian42 it’s like a noun for missing something/someone.It’s a feeling, like a vanilla nostalgia.
— Deborah Vasques (@vazquezzz) June 18, 2014
What do you think?
In the book In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G. Bell writes:
The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.[2]
Saudade is a tricky word.
It’s used more commonly, at least in Brazilian Portuguese, to express the missing of someone or somewhere. You can say that you have saudades for your significant other, for family members, or for your home. There’s even a phrase “matando saudade” that captures the feeling of being back together again: literally, it means “killing saudade”.
In Brazilian literature, the idea of saudade is explored in depth – usually by authors that have had to leave Brazil for one reason or another, many being exiled by the government. They spoke of their saudade for Brazil. For them, this was a homesickness that, in some cases, would never go away.
I think that since it has so many applications, it is difficult to express in English, but its common usage may not be quite as mysterious and angsty as we’ve been led to believe.
All that being said, as a Brazilian-American, I have a deep affection for this word. If anyone deserves to have his name tied to it, it would be Wes.