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THE DARJEELING LTD. Dir Wes Anderson. 2007

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We are treated to a bizarre short film set in a hotel room in Paris with Jack’s girlfriend (Natalie Portman) before the main feature. As a result, Jack (Jason Schwartzman) holds attention in the main feature because we have some idea about his sense of loss. Perhaps if all three brothers had been given a short of their own we could have understood them better.
The film blurb gives us the clue that three brothers haven’t spoken for a year, since their father’s death. Without reading that first, the film doesn’t show us this, or tell us why. What we see is a meeting of the brothers on a train in India, for the purpose of a spiritual quest orchestrated by brother Francis (Owen Wilson) heavily bandaged after a bad car accident. Peter and Jack humour him. Again, what’s the backstory?

There are clues that their mother wasn’t around much for them and won’t want to see them, but no clues about their relationship with their father, or whether their low-level sibling rivalry has strong foundation. Peter (Adrien Brody) is nervous about becoming a father himself but it’s not clear why. Without any clues as to his relationship with his own father we can only guess.

Heavy on symbolism, centring on death and mourning, Wes Anderson serves up a Western style of grieving – Francis’s control-freakish organized spiritual quest across India. This is contrasted against an Eastern treatment of death where the grief stricken Indian father, angry at first, then tender, holds and washes his son, repeatedly touches and bathes the body, and all the village are involved in the funeral. This juxtaposition with the isolation experienced following loss in the West is interesting. The brothers must learn to let things go and they fling away all their baggage to show they have managed it.

Minimal on dialogue and illumination, there are many gaps in the narrative. Rita (Amara Karan), the hostess on the train, is intriguing but why is she crying, and why doesn’t she get some decent lines? There is some visual humour, the general oddness of the brothers and their situation has a quirky appeal, and we get a good look at India. However, momentum slows right up about half way through and the movie drags itself into the buffers for the end. As with many journeys, leaves you wondering just why you went.

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