Nerve Endings Firing Away

I was looking forward to watching Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited but a slew of unfavorable reviews put me off. One common complaint regarding Anderson’s movies is – “the clumsy, discomfiting way he stages interactions between white protagonists — typically upper-class elites — and nonwhite foils — typically working class and poor” [via Slate]. On those lines, this particular line regarding Darjeeling Limited was quite revealing – “beware of any film in which an entire race and culture is turned into therapeutic scenery.” Some might say, that’s a bit too harsh because after all, Anderson isn’t at least disparaging Indian culture. But then, continuous fascination with the exoticness of the culture gets boring after a while especially for us who know that there is more to India than elephants on the street and colorful turbans. I love his quirky movies but that niggling colonial feeling of white superiority cannot be easily shaken off.

Have you seen the movie? Did you get the idea that Anderson is merely using India as a colorful backdrop for his white protagonists’ ‘spiritual journey’?