2008 Woodie Awards
Movies: Darjeeling
Seth Miller/Pounce Photo Editor
Issue date: 11/2/07 Section: in Review(s)
- Page 1 of 1
Overall: four and a half out of five stars
Welcome back to another edition of movies in review with your friendly reviewer who is sitting through movies whether they're good or bad. Fortunately for me this week's movie was pretty enjoyable for me. I was faced with a choice go see "Saw IV" or the indie "The Darjeeling Limited".
While the prospect of watching a so-called horror movie that is just an excuse to see people get tortured for two hours and had any originality drained after the last two pointless sequels. So in the interest of not wanting to scream at the screen in rage, I decided to go with Darjeeling and was happy with my decision.
The latest film by director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) tells the story of three brothers: Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody), and Jack (Jason Schwartzman). Their father died over a year ago and their mother (Anjelica Huston) has disappeared and none of the brothers have any idea where she has gone.
While each one of them deals with their own personal dilemmas, Francis suffers a terrible motorcycle accident and decides he wants to know his brothers better, so he plans a spiritual trip to India for his brothers and himself. While it starts off well enough, the pettiness between the brothers and their own demons disrupt their trip and they make a better journey out of their old one.
While the film is quite good it seems that those with Anderson's films have seen this before. They feature the same attention to detail every prop and set piece so it has some sort of surreal quality you can't quite place. His characters speak than have long pauses followed by brief dialogue. These may seem familiar but they never get tired unlike some other movies that I may have mentioned earlier and rhymes with yaw.
The film also seems to be a metaphor about the western perception of exotic locales like India. The brothers come bearing all their family baggage (literally, they carry all their belongings in customized, designers luggage that belonged to their father), the are addicted to over-the-counter medication from India they think is more powerful and take pills by the handful, and they still bicker so much over petty thinks about who is wearing the other brother's belt and who did their father love more. They have to lose everything they know and value to truly make a connection to one another. They don't solve all their problems but they save themselves from a bigger conflict and will do just fine for now.
The cast does a wonderful job bringing the character to life, especially Wilson who isn't playing his stereotypical role. The pacing and style feels familiar but the characters and story is strong enough to suck the audience in. Just a heads up, there is a short film called "Hotel Chevalier" focusing on Jack and his ex-girlfriend played by Natalie Portman, it isn't essential but some jokes may not be understandable without seeing it first. They played before the feature presentation when I saw it, if not look for it online or on iTunes.
Welcome back to another edition of movies in review with your friendly reviewer who is sitting through movies whether they're good or bad. Fortunately for me this week's movie was pretty enjoyable for me. I was faced with a choice go see "Saw IV" or the indie "The Darjeeling Limited".
While the prospect of watching a so-called horror movie that is just an excuse to see people get tortured for two hours and had any originality drained after the last two pointless sequels. So in the interest of not wanting to scream at the screen in rage, I decided to go with Darjeeling and was happy with my decision.
The latest film by director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) tells the story of three brothers: Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody), and Jack (Jason Schwartzman). Their father died over a year ago and their mother (Anjelica Huston) has disappeared and none of the brothers have any idea where she has gone.
While each one of them deals with their own personal dilemmas, Francis suffers a terrible motorcycle accident and decides he wants to know his brothers better, so he plans a spiritual trip to India for his brothers and himself. While it starts off well enough, the pettiness between the brothers and their own demons disrupt their trip and they make a better journey out of their old one.
While the film is quite good it seems that those with Anderson's films have seen this before. They feature the same attention to detail every prop and set piece so it has some sort of surreal quality you can't quite place. His characters speak than have long pauses followed by brief dialogue. These may seem familiar but they never get tired unlike some other movies that I may have mentioned earlier and rhymes with yaw.
The film also seems to be a metaphor about the western perception of exotic locales like India. The brothers come bearing all their family baggage (literally, they carry all their belongings in customized, designers luggage that belonged to their father), the are addicted to over-the-counter medication from India they think is more powerful and take pills by the handful, and they still bicker so much over petty thinks about who is wearing the other brother's belt and who did their father love more. They have to lose everything they know and value to truly make a connection to one another. They don't solve all their problems but they save themselves from a bigger conflict and will do just fine for now.
The cast does a wonderful job bringing the character to life, especially Wilson who isn't playing his stereotypical role. The pacing and style feels familiar but the characters and story is strong enough to suck the audience in. Just a heads up, there is a short film called "Hotel Chevalier" focusing on Jack and his ex-girlfriend played by Natalie Portman, it isn't essential but some jokes may not be understandable without seeing it first. They played before the feature presentation when I saw it, if not look for it online or on iTunes.
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