The Darjeeling is Limited

My Love/Hate Relationship with Wes Anderson
by M.A. Fedeli




























Wes Anderson's films are entertaining. Wes Anderson's films are beautiful. Wes Anderson's films are often hilarious and filled with memorable people, animals, and sets. But for many of the same reasons that make me admire him, I also wind up unsatisfied. Where he loses me is first in the emotions department, and second, in overall fulfillment. The films are truly never the sum of their parts, but the parts are incredible indeed. While tackling dramatic themes, his films adopt a tone where the more depressed his characters get, the more amusing they get. And if that's his point, which it very well may be, well then, what's the point? If this dynamic is what Anderson does, then isn't he just Judd Apatow with a great eye, brilliant camera work, and catchy tunes? On second thought, maybe that's not so bad. Maybe that's why I still look forward to his films.

True, it is hard to turn away from a Wes Anderson picture; there is so much going on for the eye to delight in, and there are few wasted visual moments. But the characters have perhaps too much character to be taken seriously. For all their lofty goals, Anderson films feel like a finely crafted version of Caddyshack, complete with Bill Murray, wacky families, and the super rich. The characters are by no means caricatures, but they are cartoons, so overloaded with quirks and distinctive traits that they don't feel real on many relatable levels. They are a bit too odd and contrived to get too invested in. Sure, his films have legions of die hard fans who wish their world more closely resembled the world Anderson admirably puts on celluloid, but that says more about them than anything else.

Not every character in Anderson's recent films is a cartoon. When a Gene Hackman or Seymour Cassell (both born and bread in early cinema 70's realism) grace the screen, you can see the red blood pulsing through their veins, and it's in those moments Anderson's genius shines. In the director's most recent effort, The Darjeeling Limited, it's Angelika Houston's rational earth mother who pumps out the same verite that Hackman did. Her human, grounded performance only serves to highlight how irrational and absurd her sons are as fictional characters. She exposes them all as clowns, mopishly playing everything for gags. And these are the main characters we are supposed to have a vested interest in? Unless we aren't, in which case, well, what's the point?

I am being hard on poor ol' Wes, who shines compared to most modern filmmakers. So lets just say that this essay is where I pick on his weaknesses as compared to the Renoirs, Welles', and Kubricks. I do understand and find redeeming value in playing sadness for laughs, like Ron Burgundy in a phone booth. The problem for Anderson is that the only real reason to revisit his films is for the visuals and laughs (and perhaps the melancholy, if that's the mood you're in), as the films themselves are psychologically light. That said, he is a fascinating visual story teller in that he keeps you watching, even if you don't really care what happens at the end. Anderson does tracking shots, pans and slow motion in interesting and arresting ways. In Darjeeling, watching the brothers chase a train in super slow motion is great, encompassing more consequential drama in those moments than in the rest of the film. Watching them walk in slo-mo past a dead boy's elaborate funeral preparations, however, only serves to make sure you don't miss how damn beautiful Anderson's set-ups, costumes and backdrops are. But with the beauty Anderson puts on display, even that's okay.

Fun and creative as they are, I'd like to see Anderson break out of his familial angst plot-lines and experiment in a world where characters cannot always fall-back on decades long history between one another in order to relate; where the world is not only the hopelessly maudlin world of the privileged and their servants. Though I can't get them out of my head, I'd like to see him rely less on quirky music choices. While catchy, the tinkly, precious songs Anderson chooses ultimately make the film a uni-tone flat line with only one prevailing mood all the way through: worn-out wistful. Compare that with the musical choices of Paul Thomas Anderson, who has brilliantly used 4 completely different sounding soundtracks for 4 completely different feeling films.

Wes Anderson should actually be thankful for a film like Garden State, which shows us how much worse it can get in this land of melancholy and woeful quirk. Anderson's characters may be cartoons, but at least his films believe in them and respect their problems. Despite my own aggravation, if harsh realism is tossed out the window I suppose it is more admirable to play desperation for laughs than for noxious melodrama. Garden State exploits it's characters quirks simply to drain as much silly melodramatic dole from them as possible; talk about not having a reason to care what happens in the end.

So, as I tried to explain in the beginning, I have equal parts admiration and frustration with Anderson's work. Unlike M. Night Shyamalan, Anderson's films are still events. But unlike P.T. Anderson's, you can wait a few weeks.