Review of Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited" *spoiler alert
Synopsis
The three Whitman brothers are Francis, the eldest, Peter, the second, and Jack, the third. At Francis' suggestion, they boarded The Darjeeling Limited train running through northwestern India. The purpose of the trip is to restore the brothers' unity after a year of estrangement following the death of their father... This is a heartwarming road movie that tells the story of the three brothers' journey through India with humor, pathos, and offbeat humor. Starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman.
Brief Review
Watched for the first time recently. This is almost my first time to see a Wes Anderson film. I had the following impressions.
-Colorful colors, mainly blue and yellow
-Stylish art
-Comical dialogue between the three brothers
-The film deals with heavy subject matter such as death, but it is depicted in a lighthearted and carefree manner.
-Unique visual techniques
I am not sure if it is Wes Anderson-esque or not, but I could see a distinctive Orientalism in the film. Wes Anderson is interested in Japanese culture, so perhaps he is sympathetic to Oriental values. However, my only concern was that it had a "Magical Indian" flavor to it, so to speak....
Anyway, overall, it was interesting.
About Cinematography
-Unabashedly jumping the imaginary line
(Reminiscent of the way Japanese master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu shot his films. The way he freely captures the narrow interior of a train is also reminiscent of Ozu's style of filming narrow houses in Japan.)
-Many symmetrical shots of the actors are taken from the front in one-point perspective.
-Slow and smooth Pan Shot
-Many shots zoom in and out on the actors, like in a Japanese Ninkyo film.
In general, one can sense the influence of Japanese films (Incidentally, the director's filmography includes "Inugashima," a stop-motion animation inspired by the Japanese folktale "Momotaro").
About the Story
Theme
I believe the three main themes are
1. Anti-paternalism/Maternalism
2. Family Renewal
3. Freedom
Character
The main characters are Francis, the oldest son, who is paternalistic, Jack, the third son, who is a womanizer and free spirit, and Peter, the second son, who is caught between the two and conflicts as a borderline existence. Moreover, behind their relationship lies the existence of an "invisible father/absent God" who does not appear directly in the film (structurally, reminiscent of Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov"). The three brothers argue over which of their brothers their father loved most during his lifetime, which can be seen as a tussle between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Also significant is the presence of their mother, who abandoned her family and ordained them to a monastery in the Himalayas. The mother's presence would be another answer itself that exists outside of these tussles.
The most notable of the three brothers is the second son, Peter. At the beginning of the film, he is the only one who is almost late for the trip that he had promised his brothers, and he jumps on the "The Darjeeling Limited" just in time, which, as mentioned above, shows that he is on the borderline among the brothers. He is conflicted. He has a wife, but their relationship has cooled and they are about to divorce, plus she is pregnant with his child. In spite of this, he has left her at home. However, he also wants to repair the relationship between his brothers, so he joins them on their journey even though he is unwilling to do so.
Direction of travel on screen
Such hesitation is also evident in the images themselves, in the "direction of travel" on the screen, and in the "direction of the faces" of the characters. In general, a movie progresses to the right side of the screen from the viewer's point of view. Emotionally positive scenes progress to the right side of the screen, while backward scenes progress to the left side. Therefore, Francis, the oldest son, who wants to travel the most actively of the brothers, basically faces to the right, while Jack, the third son, who originally intended to cut off his journey halfway through, faces mostly to the left. And the second son Peter's face is not set in a certain direction. In this regard, there is one of the most memorable cuts in the film. It is after the sequence in which the brothers mourn an Indian boy they met on their journey in his village: the three of them are in a daze, having rented an inn in the village. The eldest boy is on his bed, lying on his back in a position where his face is just facing right when he raises his upper body as it is. As the camera zooms out, we see the third son in the same position, in his case symmetrical with the eldest son. Zooming out further, we finally see the second son, but he is not lying down, but sitting on the bed.
Moreover, his face is facing the camera, not to the right or to the left. This is truly an indication of his conflict.
Purpose of Trip
Well, the story is about three Whitman brothers on a pilgrimage to a holy place in northwestern India. The purpose is to "restore the bond between the three brothers," but there is another hidden purpose: to visit their mother, who has abandoned her family to become a nun in a monastery in the Himalayas (both planned by the eldest, Francis). Later in the story, when the mother is asked by the sons who have come to see her why she has run away from home, she answers vaguely something like "I was fed up with my husband," presumably because of her dissatisfaction with his paternalistic behavior. The reason is that the structure of the story in this film is very similar to that of "East of Eden" (based on the novel by John Steinbeck), a film by the famous Hollywood master Elia Kazan.
Similarity to "East of Eden"
"East of Eden" depicts a family relationship in which brothers fight over the love of their father Adam, a strict Protestant, and a sequence in which the main character, Caleb, goes to see his mother Cate, who ran away from home to escape her husband, Adam. Since this is a well-known film, it is safe to conclude that director Wes Anderson modeled his film on it.
Eldest son as a father figure
There are many differences from East of Eden, but if I had to name one, it would be that the father's nature has been passed on to his eldest son, Francis, and the eldest son takes the place of the father.
Why can we say that Francis is taking the place of his father? Because he decides the entire itinerary himself. Also, as soon as he meets his two brothers for the first time in a year, he imposes three covenants (commandments) on them, orders their meals without their permission, designates their sleeping quarters, does not reveal the other important purpose of the trip (to see their mother) until halfway through the trip, and takes their passports so they cannot return home. We can judge from these paternalistic actions of his. And this paternalistic behavior of Francis was probably shunned by his younger brothers in the same way that their father's behavior was shunned by their mother (i.e., after their mother left home and their father died, there was a lot of pressure on Francis to parent his younger brothers, and this pressure probably caused him to overly interfere with them, resulting in an awkward relationship among the three brothers). Furthermore, the sequence in which the second and third sons do not directly resist the domineering eldest son and further entangle the relationship between the three brothers by making the mistake of telling the eldest son about the each other the secret of the other brings the problems of the younger brothers into relief (The fact that the two younger brothers do not resist the dogmatic behavior of the eldest son and end up fighting with between younger brothers is, I believe, the result of their complex toward the eldest son, Francis. The younger brothers felt a sense of guilt toward their eldest son, saying that his behavior was indeed domineering, but that it was also their fault because they had made him take the place of their parents. I imagine that this guilt became a complex within the younger brothers toward their eldest son, and the aggression within each of them manifested itself as Displacement*. This kind of relationship is rather common in families with three siblings. Incidentally, I am the youngest of three brothers, and my father was almost always absent from the home, so I am very familiar with this kind of relationship. When I was a child, the author and the second son used to take out their frustrations on each other, not on the eldest son, because of his arrogance. As an aside, the relationship in "East of Eden" is based on the Old Testament anecdote of Cain and Abel, in which the father's favoritism toward the eldest son creates jealousy in the second son, leading to sibling rivalry. It is a very Schadenfreude story).
*Displacement is a psychoanalytic term, a kind of defense mechanism. It is the act of turning an unacceptable feeling or desire toward another object. It is similar to taking it out on someone.
Foreshadowing of Born Again
In other words, the key to fulfilling the purpose of this journey is the "transformation" of the three brothers, and in that light, the scene in the beginning of the film where the three brothers are given a red mark on their foreheads by the train crew, called "tikka" in Hinduism, and the episode in the middle of the film where they attend the funeral (in Hindu style, naturally) of the Indian boy who was killed in an accident, are all important. Both are suggestive. These events seem to foretell the group's "Initiation/Baptism/Born Again/Conversion" through their journey.
The Brothers Whitman
The film's visuals are Indian-cultural, and there is hardly a whiff of Christianity, as not even a cross appears, but the three brothers still seem to be from a very traditional American Protestant family. Why is that? The three brothers have a lot of luggage for their travels: the second son Peter has a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses that belonged to his father, the third son Jack has an expensive-looking perfume, and the eldest son Francis has a pair of $3000 loafers and a $4000 belt, plus a servant-like assistant, furthermore each of the three brothers has a Louis Vuitton suitcase inherited from their father. In addition, Jack is also a novelist and was writing short stories in Paris just before the trip. In the scene where the three brothers are on their way to their father's funeral, they are described as inheriting his Porsche. Then, whoever it was, the word "ordeal" is uttered by one of the brothers. These things suggest that they are from a wealthy, traditional Protestant family, or WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants).
Indian Magic Binds Again
As the story progresses, we see scenes where we can imagine that Francis, the eldest son, who has become Born Again and Maternalistic through the trip as predicted, would have left the choice and initiative to Peter, the second son, who is the most indecisive and passive of the three. These include the scene in which Francis entrusts Peter with the disposition of the ticket and the scene in which Peter drives the motorcycle with Francis and Jack in the back. The motorcycle scene can be seen as symbolic of breaking free from the confining and controlling space of the "train" (the three brothers are told by their mother, who has gone to see them, to "be more free"). Thus, the three brothers, whose ties had been torn apart by their father's death, are strongly bound together again (as if Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from Symphony No. 9 were playing in the background). They leave behind the burdensーtheir father's suitcases and bagsーof unnecessary travel and jump onto a new train, as if in tune with Peter at the beginning of the film.
Related Works
-Encanto
Disney animated film released in 2021. Like "The Darjeeling Limited", it is a story of anti-paternalism/maternalism and family renewal, in which the protagonist stops the collapse of a family that can no longer be sustained by paternalism. The protagonist unravels the family's stiffness and offers a new way of being a family.
-About Time
A film by British filmmaker Richard Curtis. The main character's family is obviously WASP, similar to that of the three brothers.
-Little Miss Sunshine
Comedy. A disjointed, no-good family unites.
-The Hangover!
Comedy. The relationship between the three main characters is similar.
-The Brothers Karamazov
-East of Eden
etc…
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