"I promise, I will never be your friend. No matter what. Ever."Two more points about The Darjeeling Limited:
1. Wes Anderson's movies are notable for their soundtracks: Rushmore featured the lesser-known lights of the British invasion (most notably The Creation's incendiary "Making Time" which may be on the short-list for greatest rock song, period), The Royal Tenenbaums had the icy melancholia of Nico, Nick Drake, and Elliot Smith, and The Life Aquatic focused on David Bowie, featuring both his own performances, and more prevalently, acoustic Portuguese-language covers by Brazilian actor Seu Jorge. The Darjeeling Limited is equally meritorious, though not as thematically unified, owing to its cultural bifurcation: the incidental music is largely Indian (Mark Mothersbaugh, Anderson's typical musical collaborator, is absent here), while the scenes scored with actual songs feature Western pop, most conspicuously the Kinks.
Indeed, there are no fewer than three Kinks songs in Darjeeling: "This Time Tomorrow", "Strangers", and "Powerman". As with Tenenbaums and Life Aquatic (though less so with Rushmore), it is not unusual for Anderson to lean heavily on one artist . What is unusual is that all three Kinks tracks originate from the same album, 1970's Lola vs. the Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, Part 1. (Yes, the Kinks' most famous track shy of "You Really Got Me", the titular ode to a particularly unconvincing transvestite, is on the record). Lola et al. remains readily available at most reputable music retailers for a price between $9.99 and $11.99. Though perhaps not scaling the same highs as Village Green Preservation Society or Something Else, it is an excellent album by one of rock and roll's most gifted and, at least stateside, sorely under-appreciated bands. If you should catch the movie, and enjoy the outstanding songcraft therein, do yourself a favor and pick it up.
2. Right around the release of The Darjeeling Limited, it came to light that Wes Anderson filmed, back in 2005, a short film starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman called The Hotel Chevalier. Chevalier is a kind of prologue to Darjeeling, serving as a frame of reference for the longer film; it is also a stylish entertainment in its own right, a cocktail before dinner. For reasons unbeknownst to me, Fox Searchlight initially ran The Darjeeling Limited without Chevalier attached; sensing that the featurette could potentially garner an Oscar nomination for Best Short Feature, the company decided to tack it on to the front of Darjeeling so that it could qualify for consideration. The film was also made available as a free download on iTunes, which is how I first saw it.
The Hotel Chevalier is included on the DVD of The Darjeeling Limited: you are given the option to watch the two in conjunction, or separately. Though I had already seen Chevalier, I opted to watch them together, and I do believe that it does make a significant difference as to your understanding and enjoyment of the feature. If nothing else, it's another opportunity to look at that ridiculous set of luggage, designed for the film by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton.
