tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post6843189707273453421..comments2023-10-31T10:21:00.796-04:00Comments on Thanks for the Use of the Hall: The Darjeeling LimitedDan Sallitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-24288407802524477172007-11-23T22:13:00.000-05:002007-11-23T22:13:00.000-05:00Noel - I guess it's true that India absorbs so...Noel - I guess it's true that India absorbs some of the quirky qualities of Anderson's palette, gives it a naturalistic dimension. I'd sure like to see <b>Hotel Chevalier</b> - it wasn't in the limited-release print I saw, and by the time I went looking for it on the web, it had been taken offline and included in the wide release.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-91789088605493217462007-11-22T02:31:00.000-05:002007-11-22T02:31:00.000-05:00Hi Dan, came to this belatedly. Interesting what y...Hi Dan, came to this belatedly. Interesting what you say about there being two Andersons, in some kind of dynamic tension with each other, but don't you also think Anderson's penchant for strikingly stylized color schemes finds its fulfilment in this film? That his oddball palette is not only unodd in color rich India, but downright at home? <br><br>Hotel Chevalier opened the film; it makes for an interesting sidebar--like, oh, how "The Pension Grillparzer" relates to the whole of "The World According to Garp."Noel Verahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-84265456795044593802007-10-27T17:28:00.000-04:002007-10-27T17:28:00.000-04:00Thanks for this, Dan. Predictably, you're one ...Thanks for this, Dan. Predictably, you're one of the film's few articulate defenders.<br><br>I worry sometimes that Anderson's pictorialism doesn't integrate with the narrative design. The incessant whip pans struck me as neat but mannered, as did (in a different way) the repeated use of long lateral tracks shot in slow motion and set to Kinks songs. <br><br>We have two such tracks when characters are racing to board trains, but then we have another when they make their way through the funeral. The (maybe unintended) implications of this parallel structure worried me. It struck me that Anderson is using this device simply to dilate and "poeticize" certain moments at any cost. The cost here seems to be a (probably unintended) ratification of the characters' self-involvement, even at the very moment when they are supposed to be experiencing some kind of transcendence.<br><br>Something about Anderson's use of music (in this scene and others) bugs me even as I enjoy the music itself quite a bit. Anderson has a spectacular knack for synchronizing the time and melodic trajectory of a piece of music to a sequence (whether a sequence-shot or a series of shots), but the way he uses lyrics that vaguely harmonize with or comment on the action ("strangers on this road we are on") seems easy and bothersome in the same manner as the bridging music used by THIS AMERICAN LIFE or the way contemporary reality TV uses a blanket of pop music to wring an emotional arc out of banal fragments.<br><br>But, I'll have to see this again with your notes in mind.<br><br>Can you elaborate on your last paragraph a bit?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com