We Haven't Located Us Yet

I like me some Wes Anderson. Rushmore really surprised me in a way that was exciting. He managed to make this charming, funny and touching movie in a completely stylized way that, when you stop and think about it, shouldn’t work. Typically that sort of stylization feels a little wankery in the hands of lesser artists, but there are those that can pull it off, artists that I respect immensely. David Lynch uses it to sing the signs of his demented dream muse. And I certainly get where people find Stanley Kubrick’s stylized vision distracting and off-putting, but I feel so much control coming through that I know I’m putting myself in the hands of a consummate craftsman. Wes Anderson’s work achieves this strange hyper-realism through its theatrical stylization, and it seems to be alive with a sort of innocence that’s infectious.

He took that stylization even further with The Royal Tenenbaums and again created something that knocked me for a loop. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou on the other hand didn’t really work for me. I think I was expecting too much and walked away feeling like the emotional pay off he tried to give us in the end was not justified by what had come before. I’ve grown to like it more with further viewings, but it’s been a hard fought like, and not at all the jubilant dance of laughing love his other films were for me. It’s because of that feeling of let down that I put off watching The Darjeeling Limited.

I should not have worried.

I was drawn in and pretty knocked out. I let it sit and brew for a couple of days and then went in for a second helping, and sure enough, it was love alright.

Brief synopsis: Three brothers, still reeling from their father’s death, take a train trip in India to sort things out and to attempt to get close again.

Less brief synopsis: The trip represents a spiritual journey, which is, okay, obvious. In fact I think the characters make no bones about pointing out that they’re striving for a spiritual journey. But the characters self knowledge about this make it unachievable; they’re trying too hard. It’s not until they have been forced out of their schedule and forced into dealing with each other and each others way of grieving that they can begin the actual spiritual journey.

During the train trip, all of the brothers are holding onto base ideas of the physical world; Francis’ need to control every moment, Peter’s holding onto items of clothing and keys that his father left behind, and Jack mired in sexual desire and his father’s literal luggage. The whole ride, the brothers work against each other in pairs in this comical dancing triangle, and if that weren’t enough to derail them, they spend most of their time trying to stay inebriated with Indian pharmaceuticals; consciously or subconsciously trying to avoid this journey. It’s not until the brothers are forced off the train, and literally the moment that they finally lose the printer/laminator that has heretofore made their spiritual journey schedules, that they are set upon the path they need.

David Lynch once described a film as being like a duck, going further to state that with a duck, you couldn’t have the eye anywhere else than where it is. It would get lost if it were on the body, and if it were on the bill you would have two busy things too close to each other… I’ve never fully understood what the hell he was talking about, but I think I got close to understanding it with The Darjeeling Limited. All the moments in the story happened when they were supposed to happen, the characters go through what they are supposed to go through when they need to and when they’re ready for it.

When the brothers first leave the train, they each take part in this ritual with a peacock feather only to learn that they did not know how to do it correctly. Looking back on it, I thought, “well of course they didn’t know how to do it. They hadn’t gone through what they needed to go through yet.” There’s a flashback to a scene of the day of their father’s funeral that comes at the exact right moment of the film, when they’re figuring themselves out, when they’re ready for a second chance at dealing with the feelings they were left with.

This is a wonderfully put together film, and I’m amazingly enamored of it. It brims with this childlike innocence and I’m left gasping even at the fairly obvious symbolism near the end. I once again felt the dizzy combination of humor and drama and poignancy that Mr. Anderson’s other films gave. Most of all, I thought it was a wonderful reminder that life itself is a spiritual journey.

Live it accordingly.