Movie Review: The Darjeeling Limited- The outsider

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Warning : contains spoilers.
Family is a weird thing. Not the usual families. Every now and then, one comes across families and people who are different, who are the ‘ outsiders’. Cinematically, these outsiders are not easy to essay, as they don’t have an exaggerated sense of emotional side, which most so called ‘interesting’ characters have, i.e. they are not very bad or very good. They hinge somewhere in the middle, the most beautiful thing about these characters are their complexities and the fact that by their own analysis of themselves, there is nothing wrong about them. The film maker, who captures these ‘outsiders’ the most beautifully, is Wes Anderson.
Francis (Owen Wilson), peter (Adrian broody) and jack (Jason Schwartzman) are brothers. Their father passed away a year ago. They have not met since a year, and Francis, who recently had a life threatening accident , invites his brothers on a spiritual journey in India on a train called ‘ The Darjeeling limited’. Peter is about to be a father in 6 weeks but he is still not able to accept it. Jack’s girlfriend left him, and he has not got over her. Their mother has disappeared, and they have not heard about her. In short they are on the verge of an internal crisis and how this journey affects their crisis which forms the movie.
Cinema can be seen on screen, has sound to be heard and enjoyed, but how many movies can boast of making the viewers give a sense of smell of the geography in which it is set and which is affecting the characters. That’s what this movie does. The movie is a character study and even more importantly, a human relationship study at its best. Francis is the more dominating one, he orders food for his brothers when eating much to their embarrassment, he feels responsible for them, and in his own wacky little way keeps trying to keep the family together. Peter is the quiet one who seems to mourn his father’s death the most even after a year, and uses his fathers razor to his glasses, much to the annoyance of Francis. Jack is the pampered one, whom everyone in the family obviously keeps protecting and who has a crush on the Indian waitress in the train. The great aspect of its screenplay is that these characteristics are derived by the various situations to which these characters react to as a group and as individuals. Their whole past life is clearly imaginable without saying so in as much words. Indian writing can learn so much from a piece like this.
For me, there is probably no one else, who uses more interesting shot compositions then Wes Anderson. He literally makes the camera dance in such an amazing way, by the use of wide shots and fast panning, that you feel the characters very real and close. Special mention to the way he uses sounds, which can be used only in India brilliantly. There is enough said about his innovative style, but one cant stop praising his sympathy for the characters and to somehow prove that their wackiness itself is their most subtle normalcy. Amongst the many many funny and amazing sub plots in the movie, some which stand out is their journey in the temple and their reactions and equations with each other, their constant need to prove who was close to their father, the stealing of the shoe, and so on. On the way they also encounter a funeral and see a man in a small village mourn the death of his young son. As they see the niceness of people in India and the ease with which people forget, forgive and keep living, they themselves start to finally bury their father internally, as they have not stopped mourning the death yet. The use of  Satyajit ray music in the background is heartwarming, and it sort of epitomizes what India stands for. Owen Wilson is just brilliant, and even after watching the movie 10-15 times now, I crack everytime when he says ‘did you just fuck that indian girl..sweetlime..’ in his doing less and less lies his mastery, broody is great as usual and he portrays at least 2 to 3 emotions inside of him in every scene with such grace. Scwartzman as the pampered silent weird one is perfect.
Whether its royal tenabums, or dr zissu or Darjeeling limited, Anderson is constantly fascinated by the people and families who are troubled. These people like most others are filled with guilt of the past, guilt of their actions, of times lost and life past by. They are always trying to search answers for happiness and life and go to any extent to find them, but at the end they imperatively find the answers inside of them. Family and blood relations are a funny thing. They are so complex, they are often so much about the unspoken rather then the spoken and the obvious. In one scene jack asks, ‘I wonder whether we would have been friends if we were not related’. From the time the 3 brothers were born, they were probably troubled by their parents troubled relationship, that’s why they find it hard to commit to relationships, find it hard to forget the past and live the present, find it hard to get over their fathers death. Throughout the film, they keep carrying their fathers big orange bags, which they hardly use, these bags are a metaphor for all the mental baggage, pre mature prejudices to life, to pessimism which they have developed cause of what they have been through as a family. At the end, as they laugh and jump on the train, they leave all the baggage behind and finally move on. The country and its people change them, touches them, but above all they let themselves to in a way empty their minds and let things touch them and finally they set themselves free.