What's Phoenician about "The Phoenician Scheme"?

Abstract

This study examines how Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (2025) invokes Phoenician-ness. While the term references a first millennium BCE coastal Levantine cultural group, this is not the setting for the film Instead, Anderson evokes "Phoenicia" in three ways: as heritage, as a fictional 20th century place, and as aesthetic. First, the film’s dedication to Anderson’s father-in-law highlights modern “Phoenician” identity as a component of Lebanese heritage, tied to narratives of mobility, entrepreneurship, and resilience. Second, the fictional setting of “Greater Independent Phoenicia” reimagines mid-20th-century Middle Eastern geopolitics, echoing Mandate-era Palestine through artificial borders, infrastructure schemes, and conflict between Western opportunists and regional stakeholders. This constructed geography underscores the persistence of imperial power dynamics beneath the language of investment and development. Third, the film’s visual style produces a “Neo-Phoenician” aesthetic, blending Egyptomania, Orientalism, and eclectic references reminiscent of how ancient Phoenician art has historically been interpreted (as hybrid and derivative). Situated within reception history, Anderson’s use of “Phoenicia” reflects both intentional and unconscious engagements with ancient and modern identities. Ultimately, the film uses “Phoenicia” as a flexible and fictional cultural framework to explore colonialism, memory, and familial relationships rather than as any direct representation of the ancient world.