Pod is His Copilot? Four Criticisms and Four Compliments About the Music in "The Darjeeling Limited"

He's been called "cinema's hippest DJ" and few directors better understand how music and image lock together than Wes Anderson, but in the The Darjeeling Limited he shows that even exquisite sensibilities can become formulaic if they're not aired out every now and then.

Criticism #1: Retroholism. Sorry, but I think it's just a bit too pat to put nothing in your soundtrack from after the year 1970 and call it hip. This may be a good approach for period films, but as we can clearly see from the the shiny new iPod and Bose speaker-dock-thing that lovingly cradles said pod throughout this film, The Darjeeling Limited isn't one of those.

Criticism #2: Product placement. I'd be genuinely surprised if Wes got any money from Apple to feature the iPod in this film. He insists he didn't get a dime from Adidas for The Royal Tennenbaums, and I believe him, but it doesn't mean there isn't a product placement problem here. It's not the fact that the iPod looks conspicuously sleek among all the rickety Wes-tech hovering on the brink of anachronism. It's that the iPod is more than just a product now, it's an icon. We've all been conditioned by an untold number of ads to hone in on that sexy little lozenge of negative space, so it's just downright distracting when the thing is on screen. Perhaps Wes believes Apple has effectively destroyed what little remained of the wall between advertising and art, but I'm old school on this matter so I still deduct points for too much loitering there. Of course, this complaint will eventually expire. In 20 years when Apple is implanting iChips in peoples' heads, the iPod in The Darjeeling Limited will be just be just another adorably antiquated gadget in a Wes Anderson movie. While we wait for that to happen, let's hear David Lynch's brief but bracing thoughts on the issue, shall we?

Criticism #3: The "cinema's hippest DJ" thing. That's an Entertainment Weekly quote, by the way, and there's some truth to it of course, but unless they can scratch, beat match, and mash it up like a mofo, I'm a firm believer in never confusing DJs with actual artists. Most don't create, they merely collect, and while it's great that Wes is so committed to VA soundtracks, his choice to use music from no less than eight other films' scores for The Darjeeling Limited does beg a comparison with one of the filmmakers from whom he borrows most heavily: Satyajit Ray. Ray was an Indian filmmaker who is now considered one of the greatest directors of the 20th century, but he was also a composer who scored much of his own work. Wes' approach ends up looking a bit...shall we say "magpie" next to that of Ray, a director with such a specific vision for his films that he wrote the music for them. It's almost as if DJ Wes is using soundtrack to show off his film literacy, instead of focusing on his own work. There are limits to the charms of eclecticism, and here they are pushed.

Complaint #4: Slow Motion + Music = Profound. I remember some old Harper's piece in which a writer embarks on a quest to become a great pool player. He lurked around pool halls until he found a mentor willing to take him on, and the first thing his mentor did was make him observe the really gifted players. Pointing to one particularly slick operator, the mentor said, "He's good, but he won't ever be great. Why? Because he only does what he's good at." We all swooned when Margot Tennenbaum walked off the Green Line bus to Nico's cover of "These Days," but when Wes employs this same slo-mo-plus-album-rock strategy for multiple pivotal moments in The Darjeeling Limited, it borders on overuse. Anderson is talented enough to leave his comfort zone and stretch a bit, and it's time for that. Hey, and speaking of his talents...

Compliment #1: Self-parody. If you caught Hotel Chevalier—the short film that serves as an aperitif to The Darjeeling Limited—then you saw a great little moment in which Natalie Portman's character comments on the questionable musical tastes of Jason Schwarzman's character, Jack. In this moment, we're hearing a 1969 tune called "Where Do You Go To My Lovely?" by a one-hit-wonder Peter Sarstedt, a largely forgotten singer-songwriter of the 70's who was frequently described as the poor man's Donovan. This moment is partly to introduce her not-very-nice character, but also possibly a nice little bit of directorial self-parody, for if anyone could find his own musical tastes a bit funny, Wes could. And while it may be time for him to stretch a bit soundtrack-wise, his genuine affection for exactly this kind of dusty old pop is still glowingly present all throughout Chevalier and Darjeeling. "Want to see my view of Paris?" says Jack, just before one of those signature Anderson panning shots in which the lilting elegance of the Sarstedt song is magically revealed.

Compliment #2: Margaret Meadery. From a Narlai village troubadour to the Jodphur Sikh Temple band to the singing students of the Udaipur Convent School, The Darjeeling Limited is full of ethnographic performances that show just how much Wes truly prizes authenticity and music in his films. All three recordings are on the CD soundtrack release too, giving it a Folkways-like dimension. A good move.

Compliment #3: Kinkiness. Much as I have kvetched about a somewhat preciously vintage sensibility in the soundtrack of The Darjeeling Limited, I just have to stop a moment to acknowledge the deep rightness of Wes' choice to prominently feature three tracks by The Kinks. "This Time Tomorrow" is the one used both in the film and the trailer, plus two other Kinks tracks plucked from their fantastic 1970 album, Lola vs. the Powerman & the Money-Go-Round. For those of you wondering, an album is a long playing recording made up of multiple tracks by a single band! Wacky, right?

Compliment #4: Lack thereof. My final compliment of The Darjeeling Limited isn't about the music, but its complete absence from a particular sequence. It takes place in and around a rushing river—a dramatic moment in which the three brothers attempt to rescue three drowning children. The scene that follows is one in which they're all walking back to the village together, carrying the one child who did not survive. The utter silence the march back to the village is a stark contrast from the big, full river sounds in the preceding scene, and this heightens the sense of loss. It's great storytelling, great sound design. This same scene also offers one of the film's most profound visual metaphors: the dead child's hand is being held by a boy walking out in front of him, as if guiding him home. One of Darjeeling's central themes is how we try to cling to our loved ones after they die, and this small moment seems like such a authentic example of this—one of those little touches by a director who is wonderfully unafraid of detail, and who has made a highly worthwhile film.

Comments

[Summer]

I actually really like the slo-mo scene of the walk to the boy's funeral. Mostly because there is real stuff happpening there- they look to thier brother and it is in that moment that they become aware of how much they need eachother but I think that its so subtle that you need to slow it down like a sportsplay.....not that I watch sports....

I agree with the ipod thing. I think its supposed to be funny and out of place but it takes away a little bit for me too.

I loved this entire movie experience!