DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Indie: The Darjeeling Limited
By now, five features into his career, it’s likely you already have a strong opinion on Wes Anderson. Despite his tendency to borrow liberally from his own film and literary heroes, from Kubrick to Fitzgerald to the entire French New Wave, a Wes Anderson film feels like a Wes Anderson film from the moment the meticulously constructed images hit the screen. Such distinctive stylization is bound to divide opinions. Critical reception for his latest follows this pattern. The usual watchwords are there: melancholy, whimsy, quirky, hip. Whether these qualities are strengths or weaknesses depends on who you talk to, but consensus seems to be that the film is indisputably a step up from the disappointment of The Life Aquatic.
The story follows three estranged brothers who take a trip on the titular train through India, at the behest of the oldest brother, who wants to iron out their differences and reconnect. The themes of family connections and failures is also, by now, a familiar idea in Anderson’s work, and Darjeeling may succeed or fail largely on the strength of how deep he can delve into the brothers’ relationships. What is certain is that audiences will be treated to Anderson’s beautiful visual compositions, and a well chosen soundtrack, which this time around finds the director working without Mark Mothersbaugh for the first time, choosing instead to re-purpose compositions from earlier Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory films. Another significant change is the lack of affiliation with a major studio in the production of the film. While his previous efforts (including even Bottle Rocket) were all partially studio produced (by Columbia, and then by Disney, via Touchstone) Darjeeling was made only by independent producers before it came to Fox Searchlight for distrubution.
Additionally, Anderson made a short film, Hotel Chevalier, as a companion piece to Darjeeling. Set two weeks before the events of the feature, Chevalier gives some further, if somewhat cryptic, insight into Jason Schwartzman’s character. Think of it as the Antoine and Colette to Darjeeling‘s Stolen Kisses. Considering Anderson’s love for Truffaut, we’re sure he’d approve of even that flimsy analogy. The short has also generated buzz for featuring a good deal of tasteful artsy nudity from Natalie Portman, who had previously vowed she’d never disrobe for the camera. Perhaps Anderson promised he’d make her look like a modern day Jean Seberg, casually oozing sensuality; that’s what they’ve delivered anyway. We’d heard for a time the short was going to screen alongside the feature when it was released, but that’s no longer the case. Fear not, for Apple has come to the rescue, and iTunes is offering Hotel Chevalier as a free download.
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at E Street Cinema, Bethesda Row, and the Loews Georgetown cinema.
