Moonrise Kingdom

So I stepped into one of those little mini-mazes the movie theaters set up to guide, control, and gently feed the ticket buyers, in orderly fashion, to the ticket windows. A few people were already at the windows buying tickets, but no one else was next in line.

However, two women, likely in their late 50′s or early 60′s were standing in mid-maze.

‘Excuse me, are you ladies going to buy tickets?‘ ‘Not yet, we are still deciding what to see. You may pass us – any recommendations?‘

I said that I was going to see Moonrise Kingdom. And they asked what is it about?

I said that I couldn’t say more than it would take you back to the time when you were both 12!

They said that sounds interesting and they followed me towards the ticket window. I never saw them after that as I lost about 7 minutes waiting in line to buy snacks.

But yes, Moonrise Kingdom, directed by Wes Anderson and written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, is about two 12 year-olds. While it is not quite a coming-of-age film, it is truly about an adventure that the two kids take, and what is even more interesting is that this film is not a film that seems to have been designed for today’s kids. Instead it seems that Anderson created this film for people in their late 50′s and early 60′s, because they are the ones who can mostly likely identify with people who would have been 12-13-14 years old in the 1960′s.

Of course, being 12-13-14 might be the same at any point in history (up to a point) with only the influential toys, clothing, and other things like cultural idols, icons, and artifacts changing over the years.

On New Penzance Island, a mythical island – actually the film was shot in Rhode Island – Sam Shakusky, a 12 year old Khaki Scount has gone missing. Scout Master Ward, played by Edward Norton, discovers this only after making his morning inspection and then sitting down at the Mess where the place settings and the headcount of seated scouts differ by a count of one. Who’s missing?, asks the Scout Master.

Where’s Shakusky……?

It takes them a few moments to figure out that it is Shakusky. His tent is zipped from the inside, but this isn’t much of barrier. After Ward unzips the tent entrance, they peer inside the tent and see no one …

… and the mystery immediately intensifies. In a remarkable feat of stating the obvious, Ward says, Shakusky has flown the coop. Peeling back a poster taped on the inside tent wall. they discover a hole big enough to crawl through.

The Darjeeling Limited

Is taking a spiritual journey on your list of things to do. Or have you taken a journey which turned out to be spiritual in some way without you planning for it. For me, the answer to both questions is yes AND no. You see, I don’t aspire to take a spiritual journey, nor have I found any spiritual events on my many journeys. In that sense my answers were truthful about the NO side of things

But, on the other side is the YES. That’s because I’ve taken a few spiritual journeys through the medium of cinema. The first one was Eat Pray Love which I reviewed here back on August 10, 2010. In that one, Julia Roberts divorced, left home and work, and made her way to Rome, Italy, then to an ashram in India, and last – she went to Bali; in all of those places she was seeking the answers to her personal questions. It may have been a spiritual awakening for her, or might have been that she loved the food. Maybe it was about meeting the right guy. Or maybe, it was about all of the above.

Today I took in the 2007 film called The Darjeeling Limited. Directed by Wes Anderson it is the story of three brothers, played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman, who are struggling with life, have suffered the death of their father, and their mother, well she had a calling of a sort. She departed their Queens, New York home, and ran off to a convent in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in far off India. They, the brothers, have not communicated among themselves in the year that has passed since the funeral.  The idea of the trip was to reunite as brothers while simultaneously rediscovering themselves as individuals.

Francis (played by Owen Wilson) organizes a travel by train trip for the three of them through Northern India on the way to a reunion with their mother. Actually his assistant created the itinerary, booked all the tickets, arranged the hotels, and so forth. He’s in the film but doesn’t make any lasting impact.

All of the above is what the film is about, but not the actual beginning of the film. Right at the opening, we are in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. We are in a taxi and the passenger is a businessman. He’s played by Bill Murray. The taxi careens through town barely braking for motorized rickshaws, cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, or even pedestrians.