We finally got to see The Darjeeling Limited last night. Were some people saying that they were disappointed by it? I don’t know. Me, I thought it was great.
I love how Wes Anderson is like the Douglas Coupland of movies. You always know what you are going to get. Each film is like an extension of the others, dealing with pretty much the same themes: families, relationships and the dysfunctional qualities inherent in them. Like Coupland and all the greatest Pop artists, Anderson recognises the value of formula. The interest is in the similarities and constants as much as it is in the differences. The content is a bonus.
I love how Anderson recognises the value of the group. That’s an extension of the whole obsession with family of course, and is also an essential Pop element. Of course, the Bill Murray element in The Darjeeling Limited was not as great as I would have liked, but you can’t have everything. Anyway, The Kinks are on the soundtrack and that makes up for just about anything.
It’s been said in the past about how much I love The Kinks, especially that whole stretch from Face To Face up to The Village Green. Not that they stopped making great records after The Village Green of course, and I did spend some time a few years back getting into their early ‘70s material. Muswell Hillbillies especially is a treat. The Powerman album is a great set as well. It’s best known for the inclusion of ‘Lola’ of course, but Anderson neatly sidesteps the obvious and opts for the gorgeous ‘Strangers’, ‘This Time Tomorrow’ and ‘Powerman’ itself. Naturally he makes them sound like they were made to measure for his scenes.
I read that Anderson was a huge Kinks fan. Is it true that at one point he wanted to use Kinks songs exclusively throughout Rushmore? I wish he had done, for it would possibly have lifted that to the status of my favourite Anderson movie. That said, usurping The Royal Tenenbaums would surely be a taxing task, especially when that movie has the best scene ever (though Bogart and Bacall’s ‘you know how to whistle’ scene from To Have And Have Not pushes it close).
‘This Time Tomorrow’ in particular is a gorgeous track. And have you heard The Chills song of the same title? It’s a hidden track at the end of their 2004 Stand By EP/Mini album, and is a glorious response piece to The Kinks song. “This time tomorrow, where will we be?” sings Davies, and Phillips comes back with “this time tomorrow I’ll be gone.” It’s perfect, especially with the shakers that open The Chills song suggesting train travel as a mirror to the airplane lift-off of The Kinks’. Maybe Wes Anderson should have used The Chills song too. That would have been so cool.
And then there is that scene with The Stones ‘Play With Fire’. Another lovely Anderson moment, it recollects that scene in The Life Aquatic through the cross-section of the ship, and maybe also that scene in Absolute Beginners where Ray Davies sings about the quiet life. I know people do not rate The Stones, but I don’t see how anyone could watch that scene and not want to go listen to them. Then again, some would say the same thing to me about Beatles songs I guess, so go figure. Really though, it is only in film that I can bear The Beatles. I even concede that A Hard Days Night is a great movie. And was it just me, or were there lots of moments in The Dareeling Limited that were like The Beatles traipsing through India on their Hippie Trail? Also, that scene where the three brothers come running down the sandy hillside is straight out of The Monkees Head, isn’t it? Or am I reading too much into things again?