Three brothers decide to go to a spiritual journey more or less eagerly, a year after they last met at their father's funeral.
Wes Anderson did it again, or actually he had done it before but still. The Darjeeling Limited may not be as close to visual perfection as The Grand Budapest Hotel or Moonrise Kingdom, but the use of colours and the cinematography and almost everything in The Darjeeling Limited is very pleasing to the eye, and extremely beautiful. "Aesthetic" seems to be kind of a meme or a joke on some parts of the internet at the moment, but I still can't figure out a better word for the visual side of The Darjeeling Limited.
How about the story, then? I sort of wanted to see this movie because of the story - even when I had no idea of who Wes Anderson was. I saw a commercial on TV million times, because it was a movie of the week once, so I saw the commercial about ten times that week, maybe more. I mean of course the idea is very simple: it's sort of a road trip of three brothers through India. Of course India is a place that is probably used million times in movies like this, but it's no surprise. I mean India is culturally very rich country, and the spiritual side there seems to be very strong. (Of course politically etc. India has many problems, but let's not go there.) I myself have wanted to go to India, ever since I saw The Real McCoy (A Finnish documentary on Andy McCoy), and a lot of time of the movie was spent in India. Anyway, I really liked the story. I think I have to watch it a second time at least, to truly get everything.
That being said this post here had some interesting takes on the symbolism of The Darjeeling Limited. I've never gone so deep into symbolism* especially if I haven't seen the movie more than once or twice. Then again there's no point in reading the symbolism thing, if you haven't seen The Darjeeling Limited, it would mostly just spoil something and not let you figure stuff out yourself. (Good for me to say since I didn't even try before I saw that post and then read it like, 'Yes, yes, I agree'.)
Music is also very well used in Wes Anderson's movies. I guess I haven't really talked about it the music in Moonrise Kingdom or The Grand Budapest Hotel, but music in those movies was a lot different compared to The Darjeeling Limited, even though the music in the two was pretty similar. Anyway, the music was wonderful in The Darjeeling Limited. It was a nice mixture of Indian music and "popular music". Even though not all the songs played were to my taste, they suited the movie very well, and that's the most important part. And some of those songs took a while - I had to think if this song really suited this scene, but then it just sort of did. Amazing.
If for one thing, I'm starting to like Wes Anderson more and more. He seems to be becoming one of my favourite directors. (Who are the others, I have no idea, apart from Tarantino, maybe). His movies, especially this one, seems to be proving how movies are not (only) for entertainment but also art. And as an art from, I think movies are my favourite. I mean they have all: the visual art, the music and the story. Amazing.
Do watch The Darjeeling Limited. Even if you wouldn't like it, it's something I think everyone should see. Then again everyone should see at least one movie directed by Wes Anderson.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
7 / 10
* Unless we think about my 21 page analysis on Filth, however I never got any confirmation to my interpretations, but then again I could never ask something like that from him, I mean a simple "This is very good work" was enough for me. But it would be amazing to start analysing movies more precisely here, but that would require much more work and I guess I'm not ready for something like that just yet. Maybe one day.
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