The Darjeeling Limited

NeeliAankhen

I saw the movie at the NY Film Festival and liked it fine. The trains look authentic to me, I would guess the movie was shot on real trains and I'll be interested in the observations of people who know the reality of the Indian trains.

The whole story takes place in India. It's not "about" India and Indians, it's about three brothers looking to re-connect with each other and maybe repair some serious family emotional damage, over the course of a trip to India. They are the kind of odd and vulnerable character that Wes Anderson writes about.
The movie is often funny.

Wes Anderson was inspired by The River, the Jean Renoir technicolor classic filmed in 1951 (recently available on a beautiful Criterion dvd). The way the movies are alike is that both use "real" India as an alive setting for stories about protagonists from elsewhere. Both are full of documentary-like footage of the world around their characters -- in Darjeeling Express we have trains and buses, markets, shoeshine fellows,
random (i.e. not famous/recognizable) temples and their visitors, a small Christian convent, etc.

He seems also to have filmed in "unknown" places - I didn't recognize any town names -- which I also liked about this. Note, we never do get to Darjeeling. Somebody here will probably be able to tell us much more about where we really do go.

ETA: an answer: from film's website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thedarjeelinglimited/
-- they filmed on a moving train!!!

(The people who have posted that they do not want to see it, have you stated your reasons for pre-disliking it?)

dzibead

Is this mandatory? I saw the trailer and it didn't appeal. I don't think the fact that the film was shot in India on an Indian train (one that was hired for the movie shoot, not a "real" one) will be enough to overcome my aversion to the main characters, who, even from brief exposure in the trailer, seemed terminally annoying. By the way, the brothers appear to be traveling in a 1AC car - not most people's experience of the Indian train. And based on the trailer, I fail to see how anyone could find it terribly similar to The River, apart from the fact that the main characters are non-Indians in India! I know that in one interview, Wes Anderson mentioned that his interest in India was inspired by seeing The River years ago, but the two films are vastly different.

And as for your expression of amazement that it was filmed "on a moving train", have you seen this classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2gW3zwMMQ

NeeliAankhen

Chaiyya Chaiyyon from Dil Se -- hundreds of times.

GauhatiBoy

I agree on the thought it was made for a western audience. I can't see how Indians could relate to these characters. Sounds like it might be a fun movie, as long as it appreciates the real India.

NeeliAankhen

Yes, it is absolutely a western movie for a western audience. Its Indian audience members would be only maybe film world people and film buffs, I would say, the part of the population that might already be interested in Wes Anderson. It's not "about" India, it's a story about three guys that is set there -- like the way Kal Ho Naa Ho isn't about New York.

Interpretively, I'd say India in this movie is - the foreign place where these forlorn (but funny) guys go in search of a way to recover from what they suffer. Then the India of this movie is to me somewhat exceptional, as western movie Indias go, in being allowed to be definitely less under the anticipatory control of the art director. There's more here in the way of the obviously unexpectedly encountered, woven into the story, which effectively is the story. Without, however, its rambling off so far into the artistically unstructured as to lose its coherence or entertainment value.

The music alone -- more accurately, the music plus the visuals - is worthwhile: music from a couple of the movies of Satyajit Ray (I think he wrote most of his own music), from Bombay Talkie, from the English-speaking 60s -notably Where Do You Go To My Lovely and Play With Fire; Shanker-Jaikishen, Ustad Ali Khan.

You can listen to all the songs on the soundtrack actually on the website.

Lou Wilson

Just saw the movie The Darjeeling Limited. Philadelphia PA USA.
It has a great cast some are just cameo roles. Listed at the end.

It has a lot of great scenery of Rajastan. But that is about it for the high points. It was a very smug rambling insane story of 3 brothers which sometimes reminded me of a Monkeys TV shows if you are old enough to remember them. But it was also like the Royal Tenenbaums/Dogma. It gave a very clinical view of India and was more about the brothers than of India.
I must say this was not a Borat movie the movie was respectful of India but at one point they had which looked like Muslims cremating a child who died on a Hindu like fire. That must be a Movie religion. The movie could be disrespectfull to Indians. I Doubt that it will ever play in India or that the crew who made this movie will ever be able to work in India again. You will have to see the movie to understand what I am saying.
But I must say I enjoyed it in some strange way. I guess anything about India interests me.


Starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Kira Knightley, Amara Karan, Wallace Wolodarsky, Waris Ahluwalia, Irfan Khan, Barbet Schroeder, Camilla Rutherford, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Mr. A.P. Singh, Kumar Pallana, Dalpat Singh, Trudy Matth, Margot Goedroes, Hitesh Sindi, Kishen Lal, Bhawani Sankar. Mukhtiar Bhai, Suraj Kumar, Kapil Dubey,Mulchand Dedhia,Dinesh Bishnoi.

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NeeliAankhen

What is it about the movie that makes you believe that Wes Anderson et al would not be welcome to film in India again? Have you read something about complaints about them or lawsuits against them? or against another American film company?

I can think of something about it that could activate the Indian conservative lawsuit-bringing/bookburning "morality-upholding" fringe, but there's also something in almost everything that bothers them, and fortunately they aren't in power, just aaggressive about attention-seeking.

Lou Wilson

I just feel that the subject matter of what went on in the train car with the stewardress would not make this move India family viewing if you know what I mean without getting graphic. With kissing not allowed in Indian movies I doubt this movie would get a green light but who knows what the Indian censors are thinking these days. Most of the Indian censorship is about religion but morality does also play a big role.

PeakXV

Seem to remember "City of Joy" getting the "not-so royal treatment" during filming? I could see nothing wrong with the content in that movie and actually found it quite uplifting & Indian flattering as it drew to an an end <which reminds have got to order/see Do Bigha Zameen for which part of the plot for CoJ was most likely based> ...... nothing like a western movie for a "pull-rank-op" to the nearest Indian politician.

__________________
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

NeeliAankhen

Thanks for answering my question so soon!!

Actually kissing per se is not forbidden, and either never has been or has not been for a long time, but because kissing on screen is unacceptable to many people, there was a long period where you didn't see it. In the last five years or more, there is kissing in many mainstream Hindi movies!!

The part of the story about the guys and the "stewardess" on the train -- for sure that sub-sub-plot is more like something you'd find in a European or American movie, but I'd say if this shows in India it won't bother the people who'll see it very much -- the better-off people in big cities who see movies at multiplexes. The Indian audience for this movie is the audience that will see American independent films and European films -- like the US big-city/university-town audiences.

For random example - Sex And The City is well-known and popular with these people in India -- I had a nice conversation about it with a writer on the sets of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna when they were filming in the US.

And as to "religion" in films - Bollywood "religion" is as unrealistic as Hollywood "religion!" -- so nobody's going to mind a "creative" Indian religious ceremony, anymore than Americans mind creative foreign versions of The Wild West.

Lou Wilson

If this movie plays in India there will be editing because its not Indian on Indian as in the the more modern movies its American on Indian which is a different cup of Chai.

SunshineSi

Loved the film, but trying to find where the white elephant on the smooth, weathered hill is at the end?

If anyone knows, can you please let me know?

Thank you

Si

Brisso

If the lead actors are any indication - invariably in populist, dumbed down and disposable films - I would eat crushed glass before I would see the filem.

the opoponax

???

Aside from Owen Wilson, pretty much every actor in the film is a highly regarded award-winner and/or critic's darling. Adrien Brody and Angelica Huston are both Oscar winners, and Jason Schwartzman has almost exclusively appeared in quiet little art films you've probably never heard of (the sorts of projects that are too complex and interesting even for the Academy Awards). Natalie Portman is also an incredibly well respected actress who has mainly done independent film aside from the abysmal Star Wars prequels (which she shouldn't take the blame for). So not really sure what you mean by this.

I'm pretty sure Owen Wilson is only in this movie because the director, Wes Anderson, is an old school chum who gave him his first big break. And as much as I disliked the film and generally have little respect for Wilson, he actually gives a pretty good performance.

The Darjeeling Limited left a really bad taste in my mouth, but I wouldn't condemn it because the actors are a bunch of hacks. If these actors are chumps, who pray tell do you like?

Don't knock a movie till you've seen it. And don't knock the actors in a movie unless the problem is the performances. The cast can't really help it if the director is a racist who's in serious need of a pull on the reins.

guerik

I'll watch more or less anything set in India, so I'll be seeing it on DVD but not for a while yet I guess.
I actually like Wes Anderson films and I'd rate all of the lead actors, so except for the worrying racist comment it seems like the kind of thing I'd be into.

I really am one of those people who'll grab onto anything about India though - you have no idea how many dodgy "have a marriage arranged but fell for someone else"-type girlie books I've read over the years