Limited Information
An article originally written for India Today describes the filming of Wes Anderson’s current project,
The Darjeeling Limited:
But there are not that many laughs in The Darjeeling Limited, which in Anderson’s usual quirky style, features talking animals, lost parents and slightly deranged siblings. The brothers believe their father, played by Bill Murray-who went remarkably undiscovered in the two weeks he was shooting in Jodhpur-has been reborn as an albino leopard, and trace their mother to a convent where she teaches poor children. Recreated in Nahar Magra, in a hunting lodge on the property of the former Maharana of Mewar-which was closed for 40 years and cleaned up in eight days for the crew to use-the convent’s chapel was painstakingly put together in an open courtyard, using tangail saris, wooden benches from an antique warehouse in Jodhpur, and parakeets and pigeons brought all the way from the US. The level of detailing, says Aradhana Seth, who is working with Mark Friedberg on production design, is extraordinary. Anderson wanted to paint the train bogeys (The Darjeeling Limited is the name of the train the boys take to travel through India) in the style of trucks he had seen on Indian highways. Seth auditioned several painters before selecting one-who ended up painting portraits of the stars as well.