Before The French Dispatch his use of meta was just a side effect of the style, it broke the fourth wall which you can call meta but it is sort of meaningless i

Before The French Dispatch his use of meta was just a side effect of the style, it broke the fourth wall which you can call meta but it is sort of meaningless if all it does is break the forth wall. In the French Dispatch and Asteroid City he develops it and uses it towards theme, we can not fully understand them without taking in account the meta.