The Darjeeling Limited

By: Pelagie

A year after the accidental death of their father, three drug-addicted brothers -- each suffering from depression - meet for a train trip across India. Francis, the eldest, has organized it. The brothers argue, sulk, resent each other, and fight. The youngest, Jack, estranged from his girlfriend, is attracted to one of the train's attendants. Peter has left his pregnant wife at home, and he buys a venomous snake. After a few days, Francis discloses their surprising and disconcerting destination. Amid foreign surroundings, can the brothers sort out their differences? A funeral, a meditation, a hilltop ritual, and the Bengal Lancer figure in the reconciliation.


I kinda don't know how to explain this movie, so I just put its summary, taken from Wikipedia. It quite tell the whole of it (well, if you can get it). What I know is that this movie is interesting to be seen, and what I can figure out it talked about family, togetherness, and trust of each other (especially in a family). I love the shooting took place, most of it in India, with all of its folk music background -- even though it doesn't show India's interesting places.. I love their kinky-without-expression style of conversation, and I love the idea of "spiritual journey". Enjoy! ;)

The Darjeeling Limited is a drama-comedy film directed by Wes Anderson, and starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman. It was written by Anderson, Schwartzmann, and Roman Coppola. The film also stars Waris Ahluwalia, Amara Karan, Barbet Schroeder and Anjelica Huston, with Natalie Portman, Irfan Khan and Bill Murray in cameo roles.
The film begins with a businessman (Murray) racing to reach a train in rural India. As he is about to lose the train we see Peter (Brody) also running to the same train. Peter makes it to the train, leaving the businessman behind. Peter makes his way to his compartment, where he finds his brothers Jack (Schwartzman) and Francis (Wilson). The latter's head and face are heavily bandaged, as he was in a serious motorcycle accident. Peter and Jack have come to India, apparently at Francis' suggestion, on the titular train, on what he hopes to be a "spiritual journey".

All three have taken advantage of the local pharmaceutical shops upon their arrival in India and summarily dip into each others' stash of drugs. Jack, who hasn't been back in the States in a year, is a writer, and had written a story while in France. The story is apparently based on a flashback shown later in the movie. Jack has a return ticket, and asks Peter not to tell Francis. Francis is trying to get the family back together, and Peter is away from his seven-and-a-half-months pregnant wife, who doesn't know he's in India, and asks Jack not to tell Francis.

Along the trip, Jack falls in love with one of the stewardesses, Rita (Amara Karan) and proceeds to have sex with her. On the first stop, the brothers buy a venomous snake, Francis has one of his shoes stolen by a street boy, and Jack buys pepper spray. The next morning back on the train, the snake escapes; the chief steward (Waris Ahluwalia) captures and confiscates it, then threatens to kick them off the train before relenting. They find the train is stopped because it is lost, having apparently took a wrong turn the night before. While the conductors try to locate where they are, the brothers head up to a sand dune to perform a ceremony Francis says will bring them closer together. Instead, Francis reveals the real reason why they are on their trip, to connect with their mother (Anjelica Huston) who did not attend their father's funeral. He withheld this information from them on purpose, knowing that if he told them to begin with, they would never have come. Later that night, Francis and Peter get into a heated argument, leading to a small fight in their compartment, and Jack maces them both. After this fails, Jack runs and smashes into a glass window, which disrupts people on the train. They are kicked off, and Francis' assistant Brendan (Wallace Wolodarsky) leaves him and gets back on the train after Francis insults him about his inability to grow body hair.

Left with only their luggage and a letter from their mother, they try to perform the ceremony, which involves peacock feathers, praying and going off by themselves. Although the instructions were apparently to bury the feather, only Francis performs the ritual correctly. They later camp out for the night. The next morning, they discover three boys trying to cross a rapid river on a wooden raft. The water starts flowing faster, and rips off their support rope which causes all three boys to flip over. Jack, Peter and Francis run to save the boys. Jack and Francis save their kids, but the third boy whom Peter tried to save is killed when the boat flips over and his head smashes into the rocks. The other two boys bring the brothers back to their village, with Peter holding the dead boy. The villagers aid the three brothers and invite them to the boy's funeral as they are boarding a bus to leave. As they pay their respects, they have a flashback to their father's funeral which is the basis for Jack's short story.

They are taken to the airport by bus, and are going to take the next flight out back home. Peter finds out that he and his wife's child will be a boy. When they reach the plane, they decide instead to find their mother. They go to a monastery in the Himalayas where they find their mother, who appears to be a nun or missionary. Francis explains his bandages telling that he "smashed into a hill on purpose on [his] motorcycle". They ask their mother why she did not attend their father's funeral, to which she replies simply that she "didn't want to" and says that the people here needed her, to which the brothers reply, "What about us?" She attempts to bring them all together through meditation, but they think about the people in their lives and the ones they've met along the way. Their mother then leaves saying "To be continued...".
The next morning, Jack explains to Peter and Francis that their mother has left. At a stroke of inspiration during breakfast, they head to the top of the mountain, burying Peter's feather and performing the ritual correctly.

In the end, all three brothers head to the train station, but they are already late for their train, and they run after it to catch it. In this symbolic scene, the brothers literially throw away their baggage they brought with them on the journey, leaving their bags with the porters as they board the moving train. They make it to their compartment, and are greeted by the head steward and their stewardess, as they were when the movie began. Francis goes to give back the passports he took from Jack and Peter, but they both tell him to hang on to them for safe keeping. They then leave the passenger compartment to "have a drink and smoke a cigarette."