We finally got to see The Darjeeling Limited this past weekend at the Arclight (our first time there) and the whole thing was a magical experience. Darjeeling, the 5th full length movie by Director Wes Anderson, does not disappoint. Besides the typical things we’ve come to love in Anderson’s films – slow motion scenes with classic rock n’ roll in the background, the luxurious colors, the farcical characters, and the off beat dialogue – there are plenty of new twists and turns. For one, this is the first of Anderson’s movie to reference any kind of explicit spirituality. The Darjeeling Limited is the name of a train that crosses the vast landscapes of India, and India as the context for the movie is not without rich resources for offering its own account of Eastern spirituality. Throughout the movie we see the three main characters, who are brothers in the film, tinker with a variety of religious expressions and forms, experimenting to find what works best. These spiritual experiments, over the span of the movie, work to break down the walls between the brothers. And while this is an essential aspect to the movie’s overall scope what is possibly the most important part of the movie is that while the main characters seemingly don’t find anything at all (none of their spiritual explorations seem to “work”) this leads them to discovering exactly what they set out to find: a renewed trust in one another.
gathering in light
Current Blog Project: Six Months With a Quaker Preacher
