Bill Murray Misses The Darjeeling Limited

Opening Act: The Darjeeling Limited

Welcome to Opening Act, an analysis of the greatest opening scenes in film history. Today, the black sheep in the Wes Anderson filmography, 2007's The Darjeeling Limited. Darjeeling is perhaps the only Wes Anderson film apart from his debut, Bottle Rocket, to not be held in high regard by his fans. Rushmore, The Royal Tenebaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel. All highly regarded films with perhaps the small exception being The Life Aquatic but I feel like that film has completely overcome its initial divisive reactions. The Darjeeling Limited however always seems to be near the bottom of Wes Anderson rankings though the consensus isn't that it is bad, merely that it isn't great. Personally, I think it's a film with a bunch of great moments but it just feels lacking in areas in ways that I can't quite put my finger on. The central relationship between the brothers played by Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody is great but something about it just feels like Wes Anderson on autopilot. But, let's move on, we're only here to talk about the amazing opening scene, Bill Murray racing through an Indian city to try and catch the titular train.

The film opens on a taxi racing through the streets of an Indian city with some regional chase music heightening the tension. One thing to note here is that there aren't any outright gags in this scene. What there are, are some great examples of sly, dry filmmaking. Nothing that will make you burst out laughing, but, instead, several examples of gags you don't even realize are gags until you rewatch the scene. In the moment you get caught up in the race to catch a train, it is only upon revisiting you discover the layer of humour throughout the entire scene.

The first shot is centered on a hillside street and the camera almost instantly zooms in on the taxi, placing us as the audience into the action. The camera spends the chase whipping around, cutting quickly between the driver, the passenger (Murray), several dramatic closeups of car parts and medium shots of the car racing through the city. Bill Murray fidgets anxiously in the back seat the driver stoically pilots the car through the chaos of the street dodging pedestrians, motorcycles and cattle before coming to a squeeling stop in front of the train station. For the passenger, credited as "The Businessman", this is a nervous ride, he has to make the train. He must be on that train, he doesn't have time to pay the cab driver or wait in line to buy a ticket. For the cab driver, it's just another fare, this time from a desperate White guy who doesn't even pay him.

Quick tangent time: One thing I really like about this movie is just how shitty the White characters are towards the Indian people and their culture. This shittiness doesn't come from a malicious place either, it comes from an ignorant place and I think Wes Anderson does a great job with it. Owen Wilson's Francis thinks that his relationship with his brothers will be healed merely by co-opting a bunch of Indian spirituality but that obviously doesn't work and the path to healing those relationships requires actual work. Tangent time over.

"That's my train," says Bill Murray to the ticket vendor. The first line of the film highlights the importance of the train, the titular Darjeeling Limited, upon which most of the first half of the film takes place. This line lets Wes Anderson use the train for the title card of the film without it feeling forced or out of place. We already know the train is important, and it's importance is further established with the title card.

Bill Murray desperately runs down the platform as the train pulls away and right as the situation looks hopefully, Adrien Brody comes striding into view. This is a wonderful piece of meta humour (almost certainly the best example in Wes Anderson's career). Bill Murray, a key actor in the previous three Wes Anderson films, is being left behind for this film. 

The cherry on top of this meta joke is that as Adrien Brody overtakes Bill Murray, "This Time Tomorrow" by The Kinks starts to play. At this point in his career there was perhaps no more obvious signifier of a Wes Anderson film than a Kinks song despite this being one of only two Wes Anderson films featuring The Kinks on the soundtrack. There's something about the whimsy of The Kinks' sound and relative obscurity of their catalogue (when compared to the other big British Invasion bands, obviously) that just seems to perfectly fit the Wes Anderson milieu.

Adrien Brody hops on the train and Bill Murray's chase has been for nothing. He misses the train and is not in the film. The Darjeeling Limited certainly isn't my favourite Wes Anderson film, it's not even in my top five, but it does feature my favourite opening scene he's ever done. A wonderfully sly piece of meta humour that functions as it's own self-contained short story and doesn't draw attention to itself. Just amazing stuff.