Wes Anderson Hearts Brown People

Lately I’ve been getting some flack from people asking me why I haven’t got a chance to update my blog or whatever whatever. I been busy, what can I say?

One of my favorite movies of all time is Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou directed by Wes Anderson. This is an off colour comedy staring Bill Murray along with a stellar supporting cast including Jeff Goldblum and Owen Wilson. Bill Murray makes this movie hilarious with his awkward brand of humour. Recently I was told that if I enjoyed Life Aquatic that I would enjoy the previous Wes Anderson movies, Rushmore and The Royal Tanenbaums.

This interest has really been peaked lately due to the release of Wes Anderson’s new film The Darjeeling Limited, staring Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman who have been characters in his previous movies. I recently watched Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums. Both movies were very well written and had a spectacular cast and provided humour in many awkward moments with clever dialogue.

One reason why I like these movies besides the satirical humour is Wes Anderson’s use of Indian people as hilarious supporting cast members which interact with the main actors as normal people rather than stereotypical use of Indian characters i.e. Convenience store clerks or Math nerds. In Life Aquatic, a prominent role is given to the camera man, Vikram Ray, who interacts with Bill Murray and William Defoe as hilarity ensues. Vikram is a turban wearing Sikh who even at times is shown without wearing his turban and jus lazing around the ship in a more natural form. When I first saw this, I couldn’t believe that they had depicted a turban wearing Sikh like this. This is surely a step forward in educating the American people on Sikhs and

people of Indian origin as a whole, especially in America where ignorance reigns supreme. In Rushmore there was an Indian actor but he was a janitor or cleaner of some sort and had little to no lines but provided a slight multicultural element in the movie. This element was further developed when this same actor Kumar Pallana, was shown as Gene Hackman’s right hand man and family servant Pagoda in The Royal Tanenbaums. Pagoda has an interesting back story and a couple of hilarious bits through out the movie especially one particular stabbing scene.

The new movie by Wes Anderson is set on a train which goes through India and revolves around 3 brothers. There was a recent article posted on Slate about Wes Anderson’s portrayal of coloured people. From my perspective this article is just one man’s point of view and necessarily don’t think Wes Anderson to be a racist.

Sometimes Wes Anderson winks at the brothers' fetishistic attitudes toward India, but he eventually reveals his own. When Francis grandly declares, "I love these people"—minutes after a shoeshine boy has run off with one of his "$3,000 loafers"—or when Peter says, "I love how this country smells; it's … spicy," Anderson must be chuckling at them.--Slate

The article can be read here

Here’s an article from the New York Press with Waris Alhuwalia, the actor who plays Satyajit Ray in Darjeeling Limited and Vikram Ray in Life Aquatic. He addresses the Slate article and how he and Wes Anderson have been friends and what’s it like to be in a Wes Anderson movie.

Speaking about the scene from Darjeeling..

We knew that was racist. It's the character. It's done to agitate Owen's character. When you go into a foreign country, you run that risk. Wes treated the country beautifully, in terms of how he shot it. It's earnest and honest. The films of Satyajit Ray are something that he loves. He got really into it.- Waris Alhuwalia

The interview can be read here.

From what I’ve heard about Darjeeling Limited, that it actually shows India off whether it be the beauty of the landscape or the people and like typical Wes Anderson flicks, hilarity ensues. I commend Wes Anderson for deciding to make a movie here and again showing the audience something they haven’t seen yet. I can’t wait to see it.