October 7, 2007
'The Darjeeling Limited'
An Indian 'Masala' Film from America
By Arun Kumar
Film:
"The Darjeeling Limited"; Cast: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason
Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Amara Karan, Camilla Rutherford and
Irrfan Khan; Director: Wes Anderson; Rating: **
It's a Hollywood 'masala' film set in India but with a difference!
All the usual Indian ingredients are there in "The Darjeeling
Limited" - from a Sikh taxi driver negotiating the chaotic traffic
in a small town with cows hogging the road to snakes sold on the
roadside in baskets painted with skull and bones. There are camels,
tigers, elephant motifs, peacock feathers and an Indian funeral with
all its rituals.
But the film rides on a rickety but luxurious train inexplicably
named "The Darjeeling Limited" chugging along a narrow gauge track
through the stark landscape of Rajasthan.
A sari clad stewardess ready for a sizzling smooch in a toilet at
the drop of a cigarette and a stern conductor dressed in maharaja
robes and fellow Indian passengers brushing their teeth in the
corridor complete the picture.
Only it's supposed to be a fictional train taking three estranged
brothers, Francis, Peter and Jack Whitman, on a spiritual journey
through India's holy spots in a bid to bring them closer together
after the death of their father.
The siblings, always catching slow moving trains on the run, share a
huge set of luggage, a legacy of their father, perhaps signifying
the emotional baggage they carry as they go in search of a mother
who has become a nun somewhere in the Himalayas.
All those designer suitcases and bags with matched, monogrammed set
of symbols and "suitcase wildlife drawings" piled onto railways
trolleys, buses, donkey carts and other means of transport follow
them around faithfully until the very end.
Big brother Francis planned the trip to make them "brothers like we
used to be" with compulsive attention to detail. He's also a control
freak who wants them all to reach an agreement on matters big or
small as long they "say yes to everything" he suggests.
Turns out he is merely copying their mother, who meets them
reluctantly after trying to fob them off with the tale of a
man-eater tiger roaming the hills, only to disappear again in the
dark of the night as they sleep at the monastery.
On another plane it's supposed to be a comedy with dry humour, but
to those uninitiated to the ways of Wes Anderson it's no more than a
touristy journey exploiting all the clichés about India in a film
with little substance.
Irrfan Khan makes a cameo appearance as the father of an Indian
child who is killed in a drowning accident despite the valiant
efforts of the three to save him. There is an attempt to strike an
emotional connect in the child's cremation with the funeral of their
own father. But it looks more like a thinly disguised ploy to show
yet another stereotype image of India.
Anderson's use of music from the films of Satyajit Ray though
pleasant sounds a bit incongruous in a film that uses all his
trademark tricks.
It was the opening film at the 45th annual New York Film Festival,
but its limited commercial release in North America Friday could
well be an acknowledgement that interest in it may be limited to
Anderson's die-hard fans.
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