The film consists of over 50 short scenes, usually featuring two characters - occasionally three or just one. Scenes are linked by dissolves featuring falling snow, a device which Resnais previously used in L’Amour à mort.

In contemporary Paris, six characters individually confront their emotional solitude as their lives intertwine. Dan (Lambert Wilson) is unemployed after being sacked from the army and spends his time drinking in a bar and telling his troubles to the longsuffering barman Lionel (Pierre Arditi).

Ian’s relationship with Nicole (Laura Morante) is disintegrating and through a newspaper advertisement he meets Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré) an attractive but insecure young woman who lives with her older brother Thierry (André Dussollier). Thierry is an estate agent who has been trying to find a new apartment for Nicole and Dan. He works with Charlotte (Sabine Azéma), a middle-aged spinster and an ardent Christian, who lends him a video of an evangelical TV programme to give him inspiration. At the end of the video, Thierry discovers some unerased footage of erotic dancing by a woman he suspects to be Charlotte, and, taking this as a subtle invitation, one day he tries to kiss her in their office, but is humiliatingly rebuffed. Charlotte in her spare time works as a carer, and is assigned to look after the bed-ridden and foul-mouthed Arthur (the voice of Claude Rich) in the evenings so that his dutiful son, who is Lionel the barman, can go to work.

After enduring repeated vicious tantrums from Arthur, Charlotte one evening dons a leather porno outfit and silences him with a striptease performance, before resuming her usual pious demeanour.

Arthur is hospitalised next day. Gaëlle witnesses a farewell meeting between Dan and Nicole, and interpreting it as a betrayal by Dan, she flees back home to her brother. Lionel and Nicole both pack up to begin new lives. Dan resumes his place at the bar.

Origin: France (2006)
Director: Alain Resnais
Cast: Sabine Azema, Isabelle Carre, Laura Morante, Francoise Gillard.
Running Time: 120 minutes
Source: IMDB, OFLC
Compiled by: Mark Horner

Following their father’s recent death, three estranged American brothers who have not spoken to each other in a year board a train in India on a spiritual quest to reconnect. Francis (Owen Wilson), the eldest of the three, has initiated the journey. Peter (Adrien Brody) is unsure how he will handle impending fatherhood and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) was recently residing in five-star luxury in Paris, although he may have just lost the love of his life.

While not a particular happy group, The Darjeeling Limited is actually quite stirring, contrasted against colourful landscapes. But Wes Anderson’s films are about dysfunctional families and some sort of yearning for significance in the experience.

The journey rapidly veers off-course, at which point a new, unplanned journey suddenly begins.

So all aboard for the quirky albeit slightly discomforting journey on The Darjeeling Limited!

Origin: United States of America
Director/s: Wes Anderson
Cast: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Source/s: IMDB, Margaret Pomeranz
Complied by: William H. Doudle