"The Darjeeling Limited" takes dead aim at the rich boys
By: Peter Valelly, Managing Editor
Issue date: 10/19/07 Section: The Arts
The new one is something else. Since he "knows the type" - "I'm a movie quoter as well," he admits in the Paste interview - Anderson is well-equipped to portray the quoter, his ardent fan. And that is what he seems to have done with the difficult and stilted "The Darjeeling Limited." If Anderson's quote-crazed fans increasingly resemble his characters, his characters now resemble his fans. With "The Darjeeling Limited," Wes is socking it to the quoters.
What else are we to make of a scene where Jack, hoping to seduce a lovely Indian train stewardess, reaches for his iPod to put on a fey French pop song as background music? Until now, Anderson's mise-en-scene was an anachronistic fantasy world, but now it has turned into the plaything of the self-fashioned indie literati who obsessively consume his movies. Even when the characters themselves don't resemble the youthfully alienated denizens of Anderson Nation, the film still seems an elaborate prank on our sensibility. All of the humor feels bizarrely forced, as if Anderson is shoving it in there for an audience expecting the wit of his prior films, abrupt and awkward comedy in place of genuine whimsy.
If all of this sounds like faint praise, it's not entirely. For all that I felt I was being mocked while watching it, I actually quite liked the movie. If anything, Anderson's more mean-spirited moments made the film's characters more intriguing. The relationships here were more thinly sketched than ever before, but this choice seemed deliberate. It has yielded Anderson's most emotionally complex and compelling film to date.
This is exemplified by the film's sparing use of pop music. His previous movies, especially the more impressionistic ones, were drenched in lovely pop and rock nostalgia. "The Darjeeling Limited" takes a similar approach, but a more focused one; the film's original soundtrack opts almost exclusively for the acoustic grace of early Kinks. The most glaring exception to this rule is the enchanting use of the Rolling Stones' sullen 1965 B-side "Play With Fire" during a goosebump-inducing montage. The song's hushed and sinister tone takes on a shocking poignancy amidst the film's disarray.
It's here that we see, crucially, that Anderson can never make another "Rushmore." The trajectory of his films has landed us in a perplexing emotional wasteland, and by mocking his fanbase, Anderson may also be catering to them, making his inner world theirs, too.
What else are we to make of a scene where Jack, hoping to seduce a lovely Indian train stewardess, reaches for his iPod to put on a fey French pop song as background music? Until now, Anderson's mise-en-scene was an anachronistic fantasy world, but now it has turned into the plaything of the self-fashioned indie literati who obsessively consume his movies. Even when the characters themselves don't resemble the youthfully alienated denizens of Anderson Nation, the film still seems an elaborate prank on our sensibility. All of the humor feels bizarrely forced, as if Anderson is shoving it in there for an audience expecting the wit of his prior films, abrupt and awkward comedy in place of genuine whimsy.
If all of this sounds like faint praise, it's not entirely. For all that I felt I was being mocked while watching it, I actually quite liked the movie. If anything, Anderson's more mean-spirited moments made the film's characters more intriguing. The relationships here were more thinly sketched than ever before, but this choice seemed deliberate. It has yielded Anderson's most emotionally complex and compelling film to date.
This is exemplified by the film's sparing use of pop music. His previous movies, especially the more impressionistic ones, were drenched in lovely pop and rock nostalgia. "The Darjeeling Limited" takes a similar approach, but a more focused one; the film's original soundtrack opts almost exclusively for the acoustic grace of early Kinks. The most glaring exception to this rule is the enchanting use of the Rolling Stones' sullen 1965 B-side "Play With Fire" during a goosebump-inducing montage. The song's hushed and sinister tone takes on a shocking poignancy amidst the film's disarray.
It's here that we see, crucially, that Anderson can never make another "Rushmore." The trajectory of his films has landed us in a perplexing emotional wasteland, and by mocking his fanbase, Anderson may also be catering to them, making his inner world theirs, too.
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tiffany hernandez
posted 11/09/07 @ 12:34 PM CST
Ha. To say that the cult following of wes andersen fans are sterotypically white is extremely ignorant! You made your point. Andersen is a master creating a story that can poke fun at his audience but I wouldn't be so quick to generalize or sterotype that audience as a specific race. (Continued…)
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