What you want from an auteur is hardly ever what you get or should get. Is your complaint that WA did not give this film the solemn treatment that such a travesty as WW2 deserved? I think he spells it out pretty clearly and your comment is appropriate but still misses the point, though the point may not offer any respite, because you are demanding something from a work that it doesn't offer. I think this film is truly about what WA feels his job is as an artist, and addressing concerns about him approaching something, anything with a lil more gravitas. I think the hammer hidden underneath the sculpted sugar is the work itself and the journey. Life is almost constant tragedy (it begins and ends with his formal expose of a lifetime of grief felt by Zero) and, somehow, in a film set in Europe before the onslaught of World War 2, he manages to avoid almost any horrors, and instead focuses on a little world full of wonder, creating his most immaculate and wonderous film yet. This isn't set with the excuse of being around WW2 to bring about drama and desecrate the memories of the tragically slaughtered while giving us more "suffering porn." The fact that the fascists are rising in power is a central component to the film, that the world we enjoy cannot even dare to exist under brutes such as the nazis. His treatment of them seems less to me as "Keystone Cops" but more so that he feels everyone on earth is a child, that this is a good thing, and they are the most horrid children of all, brutish, cruel, dim-witted, and, worse yet, armed. You may feel that this is disrespectful, I feel that this is in memoriam of a people almost completely eradicated by the whims of a few childish sociopaths and a homage to an idealized culture destroyed. We all surround ourselves with these little worlds and strive to defend them against brutish forces and this is the lesson that is still so relevant and that continues today. I just finished Fanny and Alexander last night, it was probably an enormous influence on WA, but I think this final monologue] summarizes his ethos. There's always room to critique, of course, but I don't think you're being quite just. also this too: [this film is] about christmas ornaments, beautiful things that serve no purpose other than decoration and nostalgia.
