•
Rating: Wes Anderson is not present on DeBaser.
The empty page, result of my search, left me perplexed: has no one ever covered one of his films (not even the most famous "The Royal Tenenbaums"), why? (This is not a rhetorical question: I await answers). I therefore take the opportunity of the release of his latest film "The Darjeeling Limited" to carve out a (deserved) little spot for this Texan director. Be warned that I am the least suitable person to do it since he's my favorite director, so don't expect a clear and professional critical article (which indeed I would not even be able to produce), rather it will be a review tinged with homage.
The film lets us enter the story of the three Whitman brothers reunited after a long time by the insistence of one of them who forces them to undertake a "spiritual journey" together in India. I say "lets us enter" consciously, as the viewer is dropped right into the middle of the story without any character introduction (as happened almost didactically in "The Royal Tenenbaums") nor a summary of what the brothers have been through, the reasons for their estrangement, the reasons for their need to reconnect. The viewer is a passenger on the train who happens to find themselves in the same cabin as the protagonists, and as in reality, will have the opportunity to understand their story by piecing it together through details that emerge from their conversations. The journey is the narrative center of the screenplay (written by Anderson himself along with friends Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola) into which elements are inserted, as in all good journeys: love affairs, unforeseen events, moments of crisis, bizarre encounters, and moments of deep brotherly closeness.
The intimate dimension prevails, as is necessary considering the reasons that lead the Whitmans to India: each brother carries with him a burden of sentimental and family concerns that will have more or less the chance to be resolved. But most of all central is their family: the relationship with the mother, the relationship with the father, the fraternal relationship between them. Another Wes Anderson film about a dysfunctional family, as many reviews and articles report, indeed "The Royal Tenenbaums," "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," and "The Darjeeling Limited" properly form a trilogy if one takes this theme as the grouping criterion.
In "The Royal Tenenbaums" the focus was mainly on the father-son relationships and in "The Life Aquatic" the attention was on the father (and especially on the man) in a sort of midlife crisis, here the focus is, as already seen, on the siblings. But, for the first time, the overcoming of the psychological blocks created by the dysfunctional family is felt more strongly: "Dad's bags are not going to make it" is declared symbolically, and the abandonment of these is the final release that had never been realized so clearly and definitively in previous films. Furthermore, regarding the intimate dimension, it is undeniable that everything in Anderson's work is intimacy. The world he represents is his interpretation of the real world, made up of bright colors, clothing that nods to the sixties' imagination, particularly symmetry-aware sets, a soundtrack perfectly integrated into the narrative (just think of how many times, especially in this film, we see a character turning on the radio with the deliberate intent to manage their own soundtrack) in general a setting that seems suspended above historical time. Time is always indeterminate precisely because it is Wes Anderson's world, created with a careful selection of precise elements of the real world combined together. For this reason, it is foolish to expect, in this case, a realistic (and socially engaged) representation of India: Anderson will show us a colorful India (markets full of attractive little trinkets like toys) and also dramatic but always poetic.
Intimacy also strongly autobiographical: there really are three Anderson brothers, the archaeologist mom from "The Royal Tenenbaums" really exists (I recall an interview with Angelica Huston, on the occasion of the film's release, recounting her concerned surprise when she discovered the "coincidence"), and other convergences. Correspondences that certainly do not go unnoticed, so much so that Anderson enjoys inserting an ironic reference in the new film in the recurring tendency for autobiography of the writer brother (punctually unmasked by the other two). Not to mention the consistency with which the director calls upon the same actors to work with him (above all: Bill Murray and Owen Wilson) with whom he has evidently created a kind of artistic family.
A more in-depth note should be made on the soundtracks of Anderson’s films: the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and also the Beatles recur with particular frequency. An (adventurous) interpretation hypothesis of mine is that this is the music of the director's childhood memory which he then uses abundantly to recreate the atmosphere of reassuring familiarity he seeks in his films. This is a point that is particularly dear to me because when I happened upon a movie theater in the distant 2001 where "The Royal Tenenbaums" was being screened, I experienced a heart-pounding moment seeing (and especially hearing) the scene of the hawk’s release, accompanied by an arrangement of "Hey Jude": it was the music of my childhood memory, forgotten for years but arriving just in time to save my 14 years. And with that, I conclude the autobiographical corner that I could certainly have avoided but actually would not have known how to avoid since, as I stated from the start, Wes Anderson’s works deeply involve me: when I watch one of his films, I feel that he is speaking to me, using a language that is intimately understandable to me. And I believe that this is quite a rare thing.
Returning to the film, one last note: the intimate dimension prevails but is not total. There is also the attempt, left in the background, to represent a Western traveler in an Eastern world perceived as more spiritual and transcendental (indeed the protagonists insist several times on talking about a "spiritual journey"), far from modern Western materialism. The organizing brother plans the trip in detail, one spiritual stop after another, even relying on an assistant whose precise task is to prepare the "daily itineraries." The programs inevitably fail and the obstinacy in organizing leads to increasingly serious consequences until the brothers, expelled from the train, find themselves wandering in the middle of nowhere but it is precisely thanks to this mishap that they will be able to make the real spiritual leap. Thus, a critique of the Western tendency (it’s the businessman who appears at the beginning and at the end) to stubbornly maintain their own culture even in a context where it is unacceptable. A critique that now on paper (telematically) seems trivial but in the film appears subtly for those who want to perceive it.
Loading comments slowly
