[Frederica-l] NRO: The Darjeeling Limited

[Frederica at aol.com]

a pretty good movie, if you're a Wes Anderson fan. I didn't like "The Life 
Aquatic," it seemed to me hollow. But "Bottle Rocket," "Rushmore," and "Royal 
Tennenbaums" all appealed in different ways. This one is mostly light-hearted 
(despite a tragedy midpoint), and is a visual treat too.  
 
_http://www.frederica.com/writings/the-darjeeling-limited.html_ 
(http://www.frederica.com/writings/the-darjeeling-limited.html) 
 
also, Thursday is when Ancient Faith Radio posts the new episode of my weekly 
podcast. These aren't written commentaries, but short recordings I make in 
the course of my daily routine; maybe I see something I want to talk about, or 
am having a conversation and ask if we can record it (I carry a recorder in my 
pocketbook). Pretty off-the-cuff. Today's is about Thrift Shops, and is abt 9 
minutes:
 
_http://audio.ancientfaith.com/frederica/thrift.mp3_ 
(http://audio.ancientfaith.com/frederica/thrift.mp3) 
 
they're also going to load all the podcasts to a phone number, so if you 
don't like bothering with sound files you can just dial in and listen. they call 
all this "New Media" -- it's full of surprises. 
 
The Darjeeling Limited 
"We're drowning in quirk," wrote Michael Hirschorn in the September Atlantic 
Monthly. A few decades ago, humor was one thing (a Bob Hope pun, for example) 
and drama was another (say, "North by Northwest"). Now there's all this 
in-between, poignant and sprightly in uneven doses. Here's Napoleon Dynamite, 
dancing his friend Pedro's way into high Student Government office; there's David 
Cross on Fox's "Arrested Development," a would-be member of the Blue Man Group, 
self-blued except for the spot on his back he doesn't know he couldn't reach. 
Quirkiness is everywhere, even journalism. "This American Life" presents lives 
and topics, American and otherwise, that have been burnished to quiet 
strangeness. I got hooked with the episode about the man who discovered one of his 
cable channels was showing security-camera footage from a lobby somewhere. He 
went from thinking this hilarious, to tuning in out of occasional curiosity, to 
obsessing, taping it while at work so he could catch up when he came home. You 
know, stuff like that. Quirky.  
The King of Quirk is surely Wes Anderson, director of "The Darjeeling 
Limited" and four previous films, all of them acclaimed and odd: "Bottle Rocket" 
(1996), "Rushmore" (1998), "The Royal Tennenbaums" (2001), and "The Life Aquatic 
with Steve Zissou" (2004). You can mix and match them like a deck of cards, and 
familiar patterns will keep emerging (not to mention familiar faces: Bill 
Murray, Angelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, the brothers Luke and Owen Wilson). 
Perhaps the most consistent element is lead characters who are young adults 
(this seems to mean anyone under 40), and who are narcissistic, neurotic, 
dishonest and self-deceived. But they display these traits in such childlike and even 
innocent ways that it provokes both amusement and sympathy.  
The siblings are closer to each other than to their parents, graying Boomers 
who are confident, vigorous, and emotionally unavailable. They deal with their 
grown children briskly and return to their self-obsessed aims. The parent 
most hilariously and awfully oblivious to his family's needs is Royal Tennenbaum 
(played by Gene Hackman), and he gets many wonderfully horrible moments in the 
film that bears his name. Royal's son's wife has died, and he off-handedly 
tells his young grandsons, "I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a 
terribly attractive woman."  
In "The Darjeeling Limited" both parents are missing: dad died a year before, 
and mom, who failed to show for the funeral, has vanished. The three 
brothers, Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody), and Jack (Jason Schwartzman), 
haven't spoken to each other in all that time.  Francis, the oldest, has asked 
the other two to join him on a trip by train across India, and that's why they 
gather on the Darjeeling Limited. Francis proposes that they "make an 
agreement" (a recurring phrase) that has three points: they will "find each other and 
bond together," experience a "spiritual journey," and "say yes to 
everything."  
You might know that "say yes to everything" is one of the ground rules of 
improvisational comedy. If your onstage partner throws you a line that requires 
agreement or disagreement, always agree. "Yes" is what makes things happen. 
The actors and director have talked about how improvisational this film was, 
with little definite prepared in the way of dialogue; actors arrived on set 
each day in character, and stayed that way. This can make for an exciting movie 
if the actors are cooperating to reach upcoming points along a plotline. But 
this plot requires that pretty much nothing happen. Francis, Peter, and Jack 
have some eye-catching adventures (I thought of "A Hard Day's Night", with 
Schwartzman taking Ringo's role), but none of these are indispensable moments 
building toward a decisive turn. Even a surprisingly (if not jarringly) tragic 
moment near the middle fails to add up to much in the long run. The typical Wes 
Anderson "young adult" is passive and disengaged, and most commonly seen in 
silent closeup wearing an expression that is mildly reflective, mildly sad, mostly 
blank. You can set these characters loose, but it still won't make for 
exciting improv.  
Sure, some things do happen in the movie. The boys eventually find their mom 
(Angelica Huston), and she is brisk, superficially cheery, and fully prepared 
to bolt. Peter buys and loses a poisonous snake. Francis requests a shoeshine, 
and the boy runs away with his expensive loafer. Jack seduces a train 
stewardess. Peter is using his dad's razor, his belt, even trying to wear his dad's 
prescription sunglasses, despite the headaches. He's always rubbing his 
temples, and Jack calls him "Rubby." The three brothers try to enact a ritual 
involving peacock feathers, but bumble it. Eventually, Jack asks, "I wonder if the 
three of us would have been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as 
people." Each of the brothers has a breakthrough, which would seem contrived if this 
film was by anyone else than Wes Anderson.  
But it is by Anderson, so there's plenty of reasons to see it, if just for 
the glorious look and feel of the thing. The textures and colors of India have 
never been so vibrant and inviting; the music, from both Bollywood and the 
Kinks, is perfect; and often enough the situations and dialogue really are 
hilarious. Also, the characters are full of endearing quirks. There's a lot of that 
going around, but no one does it better than Wes Anderson. 
 
********
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com



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