Where Do You Go To (My Lovely).

99. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, 2007)

For his fifth feature Wes Anderson sets his film about grief, personal understanding, and reconnection abroad in India. Adrien Brody joins Anderson film returning actors Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson as three estranged brothers who haven't spoken since their father's funeral. The reoccurring theme of desired acceptance appears throughout Anderson's body of work and it's no surprise that it's prevalent in this film as well. Also he returns to his examination of grief after the loss of a loved one which was evident in his films Rushmore (1998) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). And much like The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Anderson has a selection of characters with deeply explored faults and insecurities, these are damaged individuals and part of the beauty of the film is how these imperfections are portrayed and dealt with if not always indefinitely cured.

I find Wes Anderson to be the closest filmmaker I can think of to be the successor to Hal Ashby. Much like Ashby's Being There (1979) and Harold and Maude (1971) there are touches of whimsy beneath the painful realities endured through life. Perhaps Anderson's films are a little more surreal than Ashby's at times with his identifiable visual style which includes his signature slow motion photography and striking colors but the scars are still there, overcome by laughter in the face of the hurt and longing of the characters involved. No matter how fantastic Anderson's films are visually, the heart of the film, his characters are still as complex and realistic as the many people walking the streets today.

With the look of The Darjeeling Limited, it's not surprising that Anderson's meticulous control seems to be evident in every small aspect of the film. From costumes to the smallest detail on the train on which the brothers ride across the country. The only draw back I can think of is that the train itself feels somewhat constricting to the camera work especially in comparison to his three previous films. Anderson overcame this problem on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with his ingenious stage like design of Zissou's ship. Here it isn't a large drawback but it still doesn't allow the film to breath as much as the other sections, a few that take place on the open landscape. Though this is perhaps intentional, that while the brothers are having a difficult time reconnecting with each other and growing into the men they should be, dealing with their imperfections, it's only fitting that the film itself feels more closed, more suffocating. It isn't until they experience the foreign funeral and relieve themselves of their emotional baggage, which takes physical shape in the luggage of their late father, that they are able to open up and grow along with the film itself. This aligns the nature of the film with the nature of each brother within the picture, becoming an organic thing itself that grows and opens and gives the movie more of a life of its own.

Top 10 of 2007:

Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you want to look at it) The Darjeeling Limited just misses my list of ten films from 2007. Unfortunate because it's a fine movie but fortunate because I found 2007 to be such a great year that it was difficult to pick my top fifteen or twenty films let alone just ten.