Hotel Chevalier and The Darjeeling Limited (A Second Look)

The Darjeeling Limited
2007, Wes Anderson, USA
With Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwarzmann
Fox Searchlight DVD

After the excitement of the Criterion DVD release of Bottle Rocket, I went on a bit of a Wes Anderson jag. Anderson is the only director whose films I own all of on DVD, so I took a Saturday and tried to watch them all in a row. I got all the way through The Life Aquatic before I tuckered out. This left "The Darjeeling Limited", Anderson's most recent film, which I'd only seen once, in it's original theatrical run. When I saw Darjeeling the first time, I enjoyed it, but didn't really think about it much afterwards. It seemed enjoyable, but slight; that it was reaching for some sort of emotional significance that the film itself couldn't justify. Watching it again on DVD, I enjoyed the movie a lot more. Part of this has to do I'm sure with my high expectations for any Wes Anderson release, but I also think that The Darjeeling Limited really benefits from being paired with its predecessor, the short Hotel Chevalier, which is included on the DVD. In "Chevalier" we are given a brief encounter between Jason Schwartzman's character and his ex girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman. In less than 20 minutes, we are given a full glimpse into a relationship that's gone sour, but still remains sexually charged. Schwartzman's character obviously still has feelings for Portman's, but Anderson shows the relationship as one that's been damaged beyond repair. Hotel Chevalier has a weight and weariness about it that Darjeeling can't quite manage on it's own, but when you add the two together, they're greater than the sum of their parts.

The Darjeeling Limited is also the first time that Anderson has co-written a movie with Schwartzman and Roman Coppola, and the collaboration seems to work well. Coppola was the second unit director on "Life Aquatic" and clearly he and Anderson must have hit it off. Given Anderson's various cinematic obsessions (it almost seems like "Life Aquatic" was just an excuse to conjure up Fellini's ghost at Italy's famed Cinecitta Studios) it's not too surprising that he would pair up with the relatives of Francis Ford Coppola, but there's more than nepotism at work here. His new collaborators bring more of the crispness we got from Anderson's writing collaborations with Owen Wilson, and less of the pretension that Noam Baumbach seem to bring out in his co-scripting of "Life Aquatic." I'm a big fan of both "Kicking and Screaming" and "The Squid and the Whale" but "Margot at the Wedding" left me cold, and it seems to me that Baumbach and Anderson together are a mixture that's a little too rich.

The Darjeeling Limited is not the best of Anderson's films, but a second viewing reveals it to be a worthy addition to the road, or in this case, rail movie genre.