The Darjeeling Limited

    King of the Sadbois, Wes Anderson generates stories that are unique visually and, especially earlier in his career, walked a line between amusingly absurd and deeply troubling. The Darjeeling Limited is his most perplexing and exotic film. 

     The film stars Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman as brothers who are taking a train ride through India to reconnect after the death of their father. The characters deal with complex relationships that center around the mental health issues their patriarch's passing has caused. 

     Like any Wes Anderson film, the visuals seem almost like a picture book. Robert Yeoman composes the shots so they are symmetrical and balanced and the characters seem to move along distinct planes. What makes this movie slightly different from his other works is that a lot of the film is extremely crowded. 

     The train is a naturally confining space which pushes and compresses the brothers closer together. Additionally, Anderson consciously burdens the scenes by putting all three brothers in the frame at the same time. 

     The Darjeeling Limited has the most distinguishably production design of any Wes Anderson film, the colors are almost entirely blue and orange.

     Until the very end and the emotional climax when Anderson switches to a more neutral green. 

     This may be Anderson's most strikingly pretty film. However, it fails to be his best due to story and structural failings. There are several obstacles that the brothers face that could be considered end of Act Two moments. Whenever the brothers are faced with conflict they back down and when they are offered an option to leave they turn around and go back. This creates a meandering journey in which each brother has his own emotional climax rather than the family having an emotional climax together. Additionally there is a long flashback scene that doesn't add to the plot or the character development.

     The Darjeeling Limited is not Wes Anderson's best film but is one of the most poignant. Complex characters and visuals create a interesting dynamic. However, its structural issues bring the movie down. Wes Anderson, instead of doing his usual and making an amusing movie that is also sad, makes a sad movie that is amusing.

My Life: The Tragedy

So, I've been thinking a lot about the main character of my film, Flex the Clown. He's a walking tragedy. He tries and tries and tries but rarely succeeds. In a real life setting, this is quite depressing. But when an audience watches on screen, it's quite comical.

Tragedy is a type of comedy. And it's my favorite type of comedy. 

But if you want inspiration for tragedy, you have to dig up those memories you've tried so hard to forget. 

So let's get personal. (Everything about to be disclosed is 100% true)

In fourth grade, when I was taking the state board exams, in a silent classroom, I farted so loud that it literally scared everybody that was present, including the teacher. It was a loud fucking fart. And I wasn't even that humiliated. I thought it was funny. But what was so horrible was that after the test, Emily Kasta, my "girlfriend" at the time, dumped me because of the fart. I even remember asking her, "was it because of the fart?" And she said, "no," but I knew that was a lie. If I never farted, I probably would have married Emily. I cried like a little bitch on the bus all the way home.

Growing up, I always resented my younger brother because he was always better at sports, school and being a decent human being. But one time, in fifth grade, during summer camp, my brother was getting bullied by Tony Cullen. So I pushed Tony and told him to "fuck off." Tony then told the counselors that I pushed him and that I said the f-word. I really hated that guy Tony. So, after that, the counselors made me do 100 pushups (for the pushing and the cursing) in front of the entire camp. Everybody was laughing at me, calling me names and making me feel worthless, including my younger brother that I was originally trying to help out. Last time I help that little shit. 

So, in high school, we used to play this game in the basement where one person would jump off the wall and try to see how far out into the room that person could land. So, one time, when I attempted to jump off the wall, my foot went right through the wall. I made a big fucking hole in the wall. I immediately knew that I would have to pay for it and I would probably get in a lot of trouble. So, I pretended that my foot was broken. I played it so well, too. I yelled, and cried in pain, but I didn't over-do it so it seemed unbelievable. Until, my mother (who is a doctor) took me to get x-rays. After the x-rays, my mother told me that I never broke my foot and it was okay. I tried telling her that my foot probably just healed. She didn't believe my bullshit and made me pay the four hundred dollar fee to  fix the wall. 

The first time I went down on a girl, she literally stopped me, told me it was the worst thing she had ever experienced, and walk out. That was fun. 

And there's many more where that came from...

So why am I sharing these stories with you?

Because  (I believe) in order to make something funny, and I mean actually funny, there needs to be some truth behind it. Larry David, writer of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, takes ideas from his every-day experiences. And he creates such honest, real, and funny television. I feel, in any kind of comedy, there needs to be some sort of truth behind it. And that's why I decided to share these personal, and humiliating stories. Because, now that I look back at them, they're hilarious. They're tragically hilarious. And that's what I want my film to be like.