More soundtrack magic from Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson's latest soundtrack compilation may be the best yet.

By Patrick Daugherty

Published Dec. 7, 2007

It's hard to make good movies. Even if you are a charming, super-talented wunderkind director, you have lots of forces working against you at all times. You've got your penny-pinching producers and studio heads, your script and its bum writers who are now striking, your hack actors, the lazy union guys who take forever to build the sets and — most evil of all — the music coordinator, whose philosophy usually consists of hiring a few flavor-of-the-moment emo bands to write original songs and securing the rights to ageless Motown hits. If only those Beatles would let the real versions of their songs into movies!

Of course it is not as important as the acting or directing, but music can often be the deal breaker when it comes to whether or not a movie makes it out of crapland.

Wes Anderson understands this better than anyone in the business and by filling his movies with obscure gems from the '60s and '70s and Mark Mothersbaugh original scores, his movies always have a sound unique enough to match his trademark directorial style. Viewers aren't subjected to the 900th cinematic appearance of "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" or Sarah McLachlan's version of "I Saw Her Standing There."

For his last film, "The Life Aquatic," Anderson tweaked his philosophy, focusing heavily on one artist (besides the Mothersbaugh score, of course), using seven David Bowie (or Seu Jorge doing Bowie) songs. He keeps that newest wrinkle to his formula here, on the soundtrack to his latest film, the Indian-themed "The Darjeeling Limited," which prominently features three Kinks classics, "Strangers," "This Time Tomorrow" and "Powerman."

Together, the three work as the film's de facto score since, surprise surprise, for the first time ever, an Anderson film does not feature a Mothersbaugh score. He instead uses Indian music (or more precisely, old Indian film scores) to serve the role usually reserved for Mothersbaugh. This might make some Anderson apologists uneasy, as Mothersbaugh's music is always a character unto itself, but Anderson goes all out making "Darjeeling" authentic, filling it with Indian imagery, colors and actors, so it would seem inappropriate not to use the local music, and it fits perfectly.

And as is usually the case with Anderson soundtracks, it exposes listeners to great music they would probably otherwise never hear.

Here it is the work of legendary (in India of course) Indian director/composer Satyajit Ray. Songs like "Charu's Theme" and "The Deserted Ballroom" are brief in length (all of his selections are under 1:30), but they are oddly affecting and haunting in a way that stays with the listener. Even before you buy the soundtrack you probably won't be able to get the songs out of your head after only one viewing of the movie.

Shankar Jaikisham's theme to "Bombay Talkie" is the best of the Indian tracks. Listening to it, it is easy to hear the profound influence these musicians and instruments had on artists like The Beatles and Rolling Stones in the '60s.

And yes, there is Anderson's obligatory Stones cut here, 1965's "Play With Fire." Oddly, the song is perhaps the soundtrack's only real misfire. Usually Anderson and The Stones fit like a glove, but the song's foreboding seems out of place here.

The Kinks and the Indian music are undoubtedly the stars of the show, and they ensure that, as usual, Anderson has put together a collection of music to rival the wonders he works on film.