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Quirky Wes Anderson unveils Indian adventure at Venice
2007-09-04
Quirky US director Wes Anderson drew heavily on his own family experiences for his brotherly bonding odyssey "The Darjeeling Limited" that premiered Monday at the Venice film festival. In the film, a trio of brothers embark on a train journey across India in search of each other, their mother and themselves in Anderson's whimsical adventure flick that includes a cameo by Bill Murray as a businessman who may or may not be their mystery father. "I've always wanted to make a film about three brothers," said Anderson, who has two brothers of his own. "It seems like we spent our whole lives fighting all the time, and yet they're the closest people in the world to me." While the film has an improvisational feel, Jason Schwartzman, who played one of the brothers and co-wrote the screenplay, said it was "scripted to the word." Anderson said he drew inspiration from the Indian backdrop which he described as being "filled with colour like no other." Building the settings was in itself a journey of discovery: "We wanted to try to discover things more than invent them," Anderson said. "We didn't build any sets except for the train, which is modelled on trains you find all over India." Also Monday, Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen offered up "Taiyang Zhaochang Shengqi" (The Sun Also Rises), a quartet of stories that dovetail together in the end, starring himself and Joan Chen. Beautifully filmed in locations from a village in southern Yunnan to the Gobi Desert in China's far west, the feature delves deeply into the psyche, dwelling on bereavement, desire and birth. "The public likes a film that gives them emotion," Jiang said. In the out-of-competition "The Hunting Party" directed by Richard Shepard, Richard Gere plays a discredited journalist who tries to track down Bosnian Serb fugitive Radovan Karadzic, indicted for war crimes at the UN tribunal in The Hague. Gere said he went looking for the former Bosnian Serb political leader in real life to prepare for the film. "I was mostly interested in seeing the look in people's eyes when I asked them if it was possible to speak to Karadzic," he said. "And what I saw behind their eyes was, 'Yes, it's possible, but I would probably have my children killed'." The central question of the film, for Gere, is "How do these people (such as Karadzic) become leaders? In my own country, how did we elect (President George W.) Bush twice? How is this possible?" Also Monday, Tunisian-born French director Abdellatif Kechiche proposed a French-Arab family saga in his "La Graine et Le Mulet" (The Secret of the Grain), about a grandfather who overcomes numerous obstacles including his age, latent racism and relative poverty to set up a restaurant. The film is startling for the authenticity of the dialogue, notably in a chaotic scene showing a multi-generational family meal at home, full of gossip, laughs, arguments and complaints in rapid-fire delivery. It looks like improvisation, but Kechiche said: "If there was dialogue they didn't like they had the freedom to change it, but it wasn't improvised during the filming." Kechiche said his "dearest cinematic wish is that life emerges from the film." Tuesday's programme includes the greatly anticipated "I'm Not There" directed by Todd Haynes, a biopic with a difference: seven actors (and actresses) incarnate the changing personae of the American icon Bob Dylan. Each is "inspired by a different phase in Dylan's life and musical odyssey," Haynes says. Sunday saw the premiere of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" with Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, focussing on the complex relationship between the charismatic outlaw and his admirer turned betrayer. A snivelling Affleck as Robert Ford gives fear every dimension possible in the scenic piece, while Pitt manages some humility along with the bravado. The world's oldest film festival, marking its 75th anniversary this year, runs through Saturday.
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