a favorite conversation among film geeks
is which Wes Anderson movie is the best
I love this conversation because there's
so much to love about all of them and
you can't really argue with somebody who
picks Rushmore or the Royal Tenenbaums
or the grand Budapest hotel so really
the conversation is less about
competition and more about how one
particular movie in this directors
filmography affected someone personally
how one particular angle of Anderson's
vision hit that person squarely in the
face because of where or when or who
they were at that moment in their lives
for me that film is the Darjeeling
Limited the story about three brothers
on a spiritual journey through India the
brother who brings them together Francis
says the journey is about trust but it's
really about communication how after a
year of not speaking and a lifetime of
upper-middle-class anxiety their ability
to talk with each other
coherently has completely broken down
the first conversation they have on the
train tells you everything you need to
know it plays like some hilarious group
chat where one or all three of the
brothers has terrible cell service and
struggles to keep out a loss to two
you want to read a short story wrote in
France
I think everybody knows that close
friends and especially family don't
always answer the questions that you ask
them they answer the question that they
think your question implies they try to
anticipate where you're going at its
best this makes for a wonderful
shorthand but at its worst assumptions
like these can be incredibly frustrating
and make for stilted communication that
never hits its mark with everyone
zigzagging and working at cross-purposes
in the Darjeeling Limited Jack Francis
and Peters spend a lot of time
communicating to themselves through each
other did I raise us
I know Francis is especially guilty of
this he organizes this bogus spiritual
journey to process his father's death
now a year past he thinks maybe that if
he can't connect his brothers through
discovering some deep profundity in
India that the tragedy will be senseless
after all we're told that pain makes us
stronger that it has lessons to teach
what if it doesn't he's so desperate for
connection that he spends the entire
movie literal izing it in the form of an
agreement last week an agreement to make
another agreement let's make another
agreement we agree to that and agree to
that we agree to that
we agreed it all no agree to that Jack
and Peter processed the grief in their
own ways Jack writes a short story about
the funeral and he's also grieving by
the way the end of a romantic
relationship something that's detailed
in a really great short film that
precedes Darjeeling called Hotel
Chevallier with Natalie Portman the
brothers seem to think that his solution
to everything is to run away
I'm keeping his passport but as that
little gift from his ex shows grief is
like a scent it lingers and has a deep
link with memory run away and it'll
follow you try to destroy it and you'll
only unleash the aroma in a more potent
form Jesus but it's Peter I think who
takes the tragedy hardest not only is he
the angriest of the three but his entire
life has become distorted his caring
wife is weeks away from having their
first child and he's in India he
appropriates his father's belongings
namely his prescription sunglasses which
make the world unfocused in the world
Tenenbaums
Ricci hides behind giant sunglasses so
that the world can't see him in
Darjeeling Jack wears prescription
sunglasses so that he can't see the
world I think that communication has
been at the heart of West Anderson style
from the start it might be that he has
similar anxieties to Francis a need to
ensure that a message given has been
received this is one way to read all his
90 and 180 degree quick pants in the
same way that Francis asks for an
agreement for everything Anderson takes
the Kuleshov effect where viewers derive
meaning from the relationship between
two shots perfected
Hitchcock and fills in all the missing
information showing how those two or
three or four compositions are connected
of course Wes Anderson loves to match
personal crises with visual motifs and
he doesn't shy away from obvious ones
either like brothers unwilling to feel
real trauma all having some form of
painkiller symbols of failed
communication can come in the form of a
dropped bag a command shouted that no
one in particular yeah a soft whisper
before sex a sense of moving forward but
not getting anywhere can be a train that
gets lost how can I train get lost it's
on Rails
Jack's tendency to turn his life into
the perfect fiction can be made physical
in the form of an iPod speaker and this
too is likely a personality trait that
Anderson shares I mean how is this any
different from this
there you go in
I don't necessarily think the Darjeeling
Limited is the formal peak of Anderson's
work but I think that it's the most
human of his films since the ensemble is
limited mostly to three people we get a
deeper dive into each personality and
much more importantly into the web that
makes them in many ways a single
organism one of my favorite things about
the film a not-so-obvious visual
flourish is the design of the train
compartment namely these two equally
sized panels on both sides of the
Interior wall one is a mirror and the
other is an internal window but of
course it's hard to tell those two
things apart
Francis Jack and Peter are constantly
throwing Barb's at one another feeling
out the contours of their own identities
sometimes they hit the target other
times it's reflected back
mostly it's both I guess that's the
point about communication you can't help
speaking to yourself when you speak to
others others can't help hearing
something about themselves even when
they know that you're projecting onto
them
not to
the Darjeeling Limited is my favorite
Wes Anderson it came out when I was just
starting college trying to find my
identity and others and it hit me square
in the face and yeah I do think it's the
best for now but that's not definitive
it's just the opening salvo and a
conversation between me and everybody
who watches this channel a bunch of film
geeks so what do you think hey everybody
thanks for watching I've been waiting
forever to do a video on Wes Anderson
this was so much fun
and me my friends really do have these
conversations all the time about which
we think is the best and you know I love
all I love moonrise kingdom and I love
Life Aquatic it and and and they're all
so good but you know everybody's got
their favorite for one reason or another
this is mine what's yours I me know in
the comments and if you want to
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I'll see you all next Wednesday