The Darjeeling Limited : Film Review
Francis: [spotting some children crossing a river] Look at these assholes.
Wes Anderson’s beautifully flawed The Darjeeling Limited is an ode to his own cinema, a wronged melody, swaying in its ignominious existence. It is some sort of a sequel to the perfect portrayal of an imperfect family that The Royal Tennenbaums was
. I would also include The Squid and the whale, another quirky classic in his oeuvre, something Scorsese seems to like too. While the other two play around more with the family in its visible form, this one, more like few bits of Life Aquatic, deals with its aftermaths.
Anderson gives you a fantastically painted envelope of exotica, in Louis Vuitton ‘attachies’, in a painfully postcard rural India, with its stereotypes comfortably seated in their places. The whites and the satrangis, the cartwheels and pagdis, and the superstitions in place, like the omnipresent conformity to the promise of an ‘enchantment’ or a chance meeting with the almighty in any form whatsoever.
Once you open the envelope (I had to see it again to open it fully), you unravel the joy of filling in the voids Anderson leaves on purpose.
The three brothers are the oddest casting you could ask for, their chemistry is painful, nothing really happens to you when you watch them talking about their erstwhile and now lying in tatters familial attachments, their shitty yet substantial turning points, and what not. They appear as boring as, well, real brothers. You skip it and revel in the ‘sex scene in the train toilet’.
Somewhere along this kinky trip, the music starts playing, an addictive onslaught of classic tunes from Satyajit Ray, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks(!), and you wonder what the fuck is happening here?
Dreamy sequences and surreal choreography set amidst a romantic score that boats of no coherence or marriage of form and art, none whatsoever.
In the confusion, you do spot an Irrfan Khan, delivering wasted expressions while the camera slowly pans away.
I certainly can’t predict if I would ever hold this film dear if I was not to see it again for some fucked up situation that I had put myself in. But for whatever reason, I love the film now. I might not want to compare it to Tennenbaums or Aquatic, as I believe all trips should be enjoyed in their own moment of time and space.
But Darjeeling is indeed a skewed classic, existing in bits and pieces in your head, and on the screen, in the dialogues that never seem to establish any sense in their fractured format. You wait for a cracker of a line that never comes.
For me, the scene at the airport did it. The brothers order tea, indifferently mix some Royal Stag in it, and wax eloquent about their lives and life in general.
Call it a music video on perks if you will, but the film remains an unforgettable journey, to use a stereotype.
The other scene which would stay with you is where Francis(Owen Wilson) takes off his bandages. I know people would talk about metaphors, but I could care less. Anderson is beyond these thematic chains.
I am not sure how influenced Anderson is with Ray’s cinema, but some sequences startlingly reminded me of Ray’s semi-classic Nayak. The same rootlessness of a train journey, the same free mind on a quest…
He handles comedy a way no other contemporary does, its not noire, its not Brit black humor, neither it is in your face funny. It is something else. It is Wes Anderson. The only other close example I could think of is Kusturica, but only in parts. And that probably explains why I can’t think of many ‘funny’ instances in the film except a hilarious ‘power adaptor’ bit in the village mela sort of a marketplace.
Jason Schwartzman is your quintessential gora babu with a moustache. And boy, is he some delight to watch!
The sequences in the village are as dreamy as it gets. The overused pans, the sequences set to an often paused flow, and the colors thrown in with a generous hand, are all pure stoner delight.
I couldn’t get to see Hotel Chevalier in its form apart from the references in the film in the short story bits, but I can’t wait to see it now.
The frames make you feel Anderson was working on a Yashraj budget.
What is rather wonderfully striking about an Anderson film is the way it follows conventions yet annoys you when it does that. You really don’t care when he delves in character sketching, plot development or any of that theoretical crap, you just crave for him breaking all the norms, on free license.
Jack: I wonder if the three of us would’ve been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Tushar, has this just opened in India? I saw this with friends at the NYFF, and Wes Anderson showed Hotel Chevalier before Darjeeling Limited. Some American theaters had the short movie and others didn’t, when it was released here.
Wes Anderson says he was very influenced by Satyajit Ray. In fact, he has sort of memorized Ray’s movies and has not seen movies by other Indian directors.
Here are two interesting interviews with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman from WHYY, a radio station I used to work at:
http://www.whyy.org/podcast/101207_100630.mp3
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14858409
Tushar, I’m very interested to know if the stereotypes really bothered you, because I would guess the answer is yes.
Anderson talks about how much he worked at showing India as he found it without romanticizing it. For example, the color was not pushed in the digital intermediate the way Amelie was. All of the color is as it was found.
Meanwhile, the train itself is an amalgam of a number of Anderson’s favorite trains, which was custom furnished for the movie.
P.S. If the sex scene in the bathroom was your highlight, then you’ll probably like Hotel Chevalier.
I actually liked Amara Karan (the train “stewardess”) a lot. A few people I work with saw it and thought she was really outstanding.
Very interesting review Tushar.
I thoroughly enjoyed the film. But by the time I reached home after dinner I knew it was not one of my fav Wes Anderson films.
I loved his portrayal of India. The stereotypes didn’t bother me. Its how he found India in those small towns.
And the sense of humor would be very typical “American Hipster” humor. His music should tell you that. My favorite character was Adrian Brody’s. He was the most realistic.
You can watch Hotel Chevalier on itunes for free if you register for mac. My friend gifted me the Soundtrack. Its great.
Thanks for the links Evelyn.
Tushi…nice review. and what a connection u found…firangi nayaks on their way to darjeeling!! loved the film. its full of cliches and stereotypes but the flavour of quirkiness worked. had great fun. and when was the last time we had sex scene inside the great indian train…nah…i dont remember. the kinky one.
Tushi…hotel chevalier..u missed natalie portman’s first(??)nude scene and one more sex scene. do catch up. otherwise here is the link….will give u some idea…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=484373&in_page_id=1773
btw, tune kahan dekhi ye ?
Thanks for the comments guys.
Evelyn, no this hasn
Both of those NPR radio hosts I’ve linked above, Terry Gross and Marty Moss-Coane, follow movies closely and have a sensitivity to the filmmaking craft. Their interviews are well-researched and often enlightening.
I’ve noticed that Anuradha SenGupta’s TV interviews are quite well thought-out. Are there other Indian broadcast journalists whom directors and actors favor being questioned by?
What I like about some long-format TV and radio interviews is they guests’ responses are almost unmediated (unfiltered). In print, it’s easier to get the interviewee’s words and intentions wrong.
Where is the monastery? Now I have ried for several days to find out where the monastery sene was shut. The only hint I have found is that it maybe is in Rajasthan (Nahar Magra) and not somewhere in the Himalays? TUSHAR – you write that you have lived in Rajasthan al your live – ould you help? I have only been there a couple of weeks last year so I could recognize Jodhpur etc., but not te site of the monastery.
Kind regards
Chita Balou
Where is the monastery? Now I have tried for several days to find out where the monastery scene was shut. The only hint I have found is that it maybe is in Rajasthan (Nahar Magra) and not somewhere in the Himalays? TUSHAR – you write that you have lived in Rajasthan all your live – could you help? I have only been there a couple of weeks last year so I could recognize Jodhpur etc., but not the site of the monastery.
Kind regards
Chita Balou