Thursday, 5 December 2013

The soul searching trip

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Director: Wes Anderson
Not everyone would fancy this brand of quirky comedy. It is not really your situational comedy, neither it is a slapstick comedy! It will not make you roll on the floor laughing but make you think, albeit a bit.
As expected, as the film is mainly set in India, the picture perfect landscape of the Indian country side is generously used to paint the movie's background. Many of musical scores were done by The Kinks and some were Satyajit Ray and Pandit Ravi Shankar's compositions in Ray's movies. It is a sort of tribute to this giant of movie maker. Irrfan Khan makes a brief appearance here.
Three brothers meet up a year after their father's demise in India, enroute to visit their mother who had renounced normal life to work in a nunnery. They (Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, Jason Schwarzman) board the luxury train, The Darjeeling Limited to meet their mother who is actually not too keen to meet them. The control freak eldest brother, Francis (Wilson), survivor of a near fatal car crash arranges the trip. The other two siblings who themselves are embroiled in their own personal dilemmas and do not see eye to eye with Francis reluctantly follow suit.
After being thrown out of the train for misconduct, the trio continue the journey on foot. On the way, they rescue three young drowning brothers. One succumbs to injuries. They follow the kids to partake in their traditional  funeral. Events around the ceremony help them look at life differently.
The trio eventually reach the mother's convent. After realising that they were not welcomed there - the mother, who did not even attend their father's funeral, absconded from the convent a day after their arrival!- they leave for home. The brothers return more united than ever before.
India, as usual, has been depicted here as the haven for wounded souls and for lost souls to discover the real meaning of life, its purpose and the reason for our being here!

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