Darjeeling Limited

I like The Darjeeling Limited. The more I think about it, the more I like it. I want to see it again. I like Wes Anderson, but I think he's a bit hit or miss. I didn't care for Bottle Rocket all that much, and I thought Life Aquatic was really good fun, but sort of forgettable and emotionally vacant. I think The Royal Tennenbaums is close to perfection, and I feel the same way about Rushmore.

The Darjeeling Limited is not perfect. There are some awkward moments, a few times when I whispered to myself, "er, that was a misstep," and the story seems to lose its way for a little while in the third act. But it is a warm, beautiful movie, with characters both flawed and familiar, a first act so brilliantly hilarious that I belly laughed throughout it, and a story arc that works, I think, incredibly well. Mark Kermode, who's opinion I agree with more often than not, said that the movie is flawed because it ends up falling in love with what it starts out lampooning -- Americans as "philosophical tourists" searching for a packaged spiritual experience. But I think Kermode is missing the point here, entirely. Westerners going to the east are always, in my opinion and limited experience, very hard-pressed to not look like completely ridiculous sore-thumb privileged outsiders. The fact is that the cultures are strikingly different, and fitting a western perspective into an eastern environment is always awkward, especially at first. Anderson beautifully captures this awkwardness, as well as showing how eventually, if the travelers can open themselves up, the awkwardness can give way to something like spiritual growth, no matter how ridiculous it looks from the outside.

Some little things bothered me -- the boys coming out of the tent before the funeral in slow motion to the Kink's tune . . . it seemed like a total misstep to me, bad timing, wrong music, too quirky. Also, the third act false ending and subsequent visit to the mother -- the whole thing seemed a bit jerky and contrived, even though in the end I think Anderson brought it all back together in a touching, sentimental way that just skirted being too sentimental, and I really liked that. When it comes down to it, I love Wes Anderson's films, because I love the way he sees the world, and I love (LOVE) the fact that through cinema, I can see the world through his eyes. His mis-en-scene is like a fantastic journey to a world that is just utterly gorgeous, and no matter my little quibbles, I love watching his films for the meticulous style alone. Even better, this film actually came with quite a bit of substance as well.