This 2007 feature tells of three brothers (played by: Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman & Owen Wilson) who are travelling around India in order to regain the bond that they lost the previous year when their father died. After numerous failed spiritual trips and a disruption to their travel plans, the three men find themselves in rural India, and after a fatal accident involving a small child, regrow their bond in places they never thought they would.
The cinematography in this film is stunning, with Robert Yeoman, a long time collaborator with Anderson, responsible. The creative placement of the camera in some shots makes a change from the thousands upon thousands of soulless manufactured films that are released each year and neglect the creative possibilities of the art form. Films directed by Wes Anderson are instantly recognisable as being created by someone who is in love with cinema, Anderson has found actors and crew that get his style of production, and it works for him, allowing him to try interesting camera techniques and the likes with a crew of people who have faith in him. The cinematography is complemented by the breathtaking landscape of both urban and rural India. The shots of the built up areas of India show us bustling towns filled with market stalls and eccentric characters, with quick and snappy camera work, while the exceptional natural beauty of rural India is shown through slow motion editing and less dramatic pans and tilts.
The casting of this film was also a positive, with the three lead actors brilliantly conveying emotions of pent-up frustration through as much as a glance. Owen Wilson's performance sticks out as prime of the three, however whether this is due to his character seemingly being more developed in the writing process than the others or whether his acting abilities add the development to the character, I don't know, but he gave a brilliant performance as the surrogate parent to his brothers and the hilariously deluded figure of reason. The lack of a shining star performance by Brody and Schwartzman coincides with their character's emotional troubles back home, their slightly reserved personalities in comparison to their brother's adds almost a divide to the group, creating tension at even the slightest disagreement on the train, all of this is intentional and brilliant.
The film combines really dark themes such as death and grief with some of the most laugh out loud comedy. With many quotable moments, the film perfectly balances having a substantially moving plot with breaks for laughs and cries, which I feel a lot of films struggle to do, with a lot of recent films focusing too much on the ability to make the audience laugh than to engage with them through narrative. I think it may even be my favourite thing about Wes Anderson, his ability to perfectly balance his films, the moments with music are just enough for the audience to listen to the lyrics and take a message from it, the moments of slow motion are just enough for viewers to admire the framing, the actions of the characters of even just the technical ability of the modern camera.
Wes Anderson's films have just enough of everything you could want, and The Darjeeling Limited is a perfect example in support of this statement.
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