NYFF Preview: Delineating Darjeeling

I attended last night’s “public premiere” of the Wes Anderson-directed short Hotel Chevalier at the Apple store in Soho last night because the film’s existence puzzled me. It’s not that I have a problem with movies as short stories, but in this case, the content of the film struck me as something directly spliced out of the plot for Anderson’s upcoming feature, The Darjeeling Limited, which opens the New York Film Festival on Friday. Because I like the feature, I was bothered by the fact that the short wasn’t included in the final package (it’s going to play with the movie at the festival and be available for download iTunes, but it probably won’t be released in theaters).

I’m part of a minority here, but having seen Darjeeling twice, I feel firmly convinced that it’s one of Anderson’s greatest accomplishments. Focused on three estranged brothers (aptly portrayed by Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrian Brody) careening through India on the eponymous train as they seek to iron out the flaws of their relationship, the movie is shot with gorgeous panoramic visuals, but it never strains credibility (as Anderson’s Life Aquatic did over and over again until it got tiresome). Anderson’s musical choices and complex mise-en-scene (long tracking shots and extensive sequences where characters communicate their feelings in side glances that require little or no dialogue) work better here than they have in a long time.

In Hotel Chevalier, Anderson sets up the emotional turmoil of Schwartzman’s character, a distant sort who has apparently fled to a Paris hotel in order to escape a former flame. But suddenly, there she—meaning Natalie Portman—is, and the passion gets reignited. The ex-lovers have a few brief exchanges, with simple dialogue pregnant with meaning (“You’ve got bruises on your body” and “If we fuck, I’m going to feel like shit in the morning” are two prime examples) and then Portman shows a little skin. That’s pretty much the whole thing. It’s not a great work of cinema, nor a story with a natural conclusion. Hotel Chevalier is really a prologue to Darjeeling, which is why it came as a surprise to me that the idea for the short preceded the feature. When I asked Anderson, who attended the screening last night, about his decision to begin the story by focusing on Schwartzman’s character rather than either of the other two brothers, his answer was succinct. 

“The short actually came before the movie,” he said. “We made it a year before. There was only a first draft of the short, and I thought I would like Jason and Natalie to be in that, but that was before the other brothers were really invented. By the time we shot the short, we had some of the script of the feature, so they became connected.” 

So the moments throughout Darjeeling that find various aspects of the introductory episode figuring into the plot were dictated by the existence of Hotel Chevalier, rather than the other way around. In some ways, this does sort of deflate the value of the short—it’s an outline of the larger movie’s themes, rather than a preliminary episode, and thus not entirely necessary to supplement viewers’ Darjeeling experience. “What I really wanted was for someone to watch the short and hang around for a little while, make a couple of phone calls and then watch the movie,” Anderson explained, “but it’s hard to do that at the multiplex. So we thought this might be a good thing to try. But the short and the movie go together and they’ll be presented in different ways together. In film festivals, we’ve shown the short to introduce everything. At a certain point, I want to add the short to the movie in all theaters, and it’ll be on the DVD.”

Portman, who also showed up at the Apple store, had only nice things to say about her director, despite their fleeting professional relationship. “As a director, Wes is very specific about everything,” she said, “which makes you enter a universe that helps you enter into the world of your character.” The Hotel Chevalier shoot lasted only a few days and took place in an actual hotel room (rather than a film set), which had a direct effect on the actor’s experience. “You really feel the environment. Not having movable walls or anything—the constraints make you more creative.”

Anderson picked up on Portman’s veteran-like observation about the technique of the production. “You’ve probably worked on studio films more than either one of us has,” he said, gesturing to Schwartzman.

“Yeah,” Portman replied, “I’m a sell-out.”

There was an awkward pause, and then the room burst out laughing.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘No, you’re not!’” the actress added.

“Of course you’re not! It’s just not true!” Anderson said with a grin, tacking on a relevant point. “I mean, nobody even got paid on this short!”

But Portman seemed to think that money wasn’t the issue. “I sort of begged him to work with me,” she told the audience. “I sat down with him and expressed my fanatic self.”

Jason Schwartzman, Natalie Portman, and Wes Anderson at last night's Apple store screening of Hotel Chevalier. Photo by Eric Kohn.