New York Film Festival: 'The Darjeeling Limited'

There's something simultaneously generous and withholding about Wes Anderson's new film, his fifth feature, a riotously colorful journey across India by train, via which three kind-of orphaned brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) seek to reconnect after a long estrangement.

While not quite as fanciful as Anderson's prior feature, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zisou (what with its cutaway sets, animated sequences, and whatnot), The Darjeeling Limited is still a contraption of meticulous design and construction. One might as well face it—this is the kind of movie that Wes Anderson makes, and critics who profess to admire Anderson's talent and wit while simultaneously suggesting that he ought to consider emulating, say, the Rossellini of Open City, should really save their breath or ink or pixels. I'll need to see it again to nail this down, but I believe those who complain about the emotional indirectness of this film, that its carefully controlled visual style sterilizes material that would be better served raw, kind of miss the point. Withholding the prospect of a direct connection between the viewer and the brothers is evidence of Anderson's larger purpose—this movie is as much, if not more, about the construction of fictions as it is about its ostensible plot. Wilson's Francis, trying to put his life back together after a suicide attempt, constructs the India trip, with its laminated itineraries, as a happy ending of sorts to his own family saga. Brody's Peter seeks a continuance of the narrative of his late father (the last time the brothers all saw each other was at his funeral) by furtively, obsessively, hanging on to the patriarch's old possessions. Schwartzman's Jack actually is a writer, of short stories—stories which he insists are "entirely fictional." Much of the film's subtext is devoted to both peeling away and reinforcing that claim. Which is why I think Anderson and Fox Searchlight are mistaken in not including Hotel Chevalier, the ten-minute short that bills itself as "Part One of The Darjeeling Express" in its theatrical release—it's being screened for press and will be included on the DVD. The piece, aside from being lovely and funny in and of itself, sets up Darjeeling's subtler theme beautifully. Without it, Darjeeling remains a beauty, but with it, the feature gains stronger legs.

Comments

[Jordan]

Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are his best pictures. Steve zisou was a complete letdown, that's why I'm very skeptical about this new film. I've seen the trailer for, it looks interesting but familiar at the same time. Anderson has lots of talent but I fear he might be repeating himself again. I'd love to see him cross different genres for a change.

[bill]

Anderson has never made a bad film, as far as I'm concerned, and I personally think "The Life Aquatic" is his best work (I haven't seen "The Darjeeling Limited"). As of yet, I haven't been able to figure out how "The Life Aquatic" can be seen as a retread of his other movies, which seems to be the primary criticism of it. Stylistically and thematically, okay, but don't kind of a lot of great directors do that? I thought with "Life Aquatic" Anderson opened things up narratively and took real chances, and for me it paid off beautifully. The last twenty minutes or so are just astonishing to me.

[tk]

Good point about the complainers (re emotional indirectness) missing the point. I sometimes find myself frustrated by that frustration, if you will. Part of it, I think, is that he doesn't supply the obvious and/or conventional emotional crescendo people often expect from movies (esp. ones in which family relations are at issue)...and the meticulous construction, etc, only reinforces that "absence" for some viewers, rather than being what really bothers them. Despite there being, in my mind, a lot of emotional power in the ends of movies like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore...and all of them, for that matter. Which isn't to say that I like them all equally, but I've always perceived an attempt at some kind of emotional resolution in his movies.

Interesting that another of this fall's most anticipated movies is from the Coen Bros, who often get the same kind of complaint and whose emotion quotient is also underrated. No Country Etc seems especially intriguing in that regard, because it looks, from the trailer, more naturalistic visually (a la Fargo) than most of their others. And therefore, given that and the nature of the story, perhaps a candidate for more conventional emotional arcs (do I sound like a screenwriting instructor?).

But even then, I wonder...the novel on one hand struck me as an obvious choice to movie-ize, and on the other, a decent bet to flop commercially. Which is hard to explain without giving away some plot, but I'll just say the characters at a certain point have a way of making you feel like you have a pretty good read on where the whole thing is going, but it doesn't go there, exactly. The resolution, and even the ultimate meaning of the thing, is more reflective and introspective than a chasing-a-guy-with-a-briefcase-full-of-money plot would normally give you. In other words, if the Coens have more or less stuck to the book, plot-wise, I can see them being in for more of the usual critique.

[Ryland Walker Knight]

Bingo.

[Ben]

He is an unusual man making unusual films in a time of almost utter and complete visual story-telling mediocraty. Don't underestimate the influence of his collaborators either. The Wilson brothers in particular are far better writers than anyone ever gives them credit for. Thematically, my favourite part of his recent works are "the story told within the story". The main protagonist of Rushmore is a playwright. The Tennenbaum film is told in chapters through Margots plays, complete with narration. The Life Aquatic is as much an opportunity to play with the perception of film-making as it is a story about a man and his relationships. I'm really looking forward to returning to this world and I hope it gets a cinema release in the UK.

[Kirsten]

Rushmore was my favorite movie of the nineties. The Royal Tenenbaums moved me tremendously, and I was dazzled by the visuals in The Life Aquatic. Wes Anderson makes movies that look and feel like nothing else that is being produced, and I find that refreshing. And I think that his writing work with Owen Wilson is truly great.

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