Is Owen Wilson in the face cast in the film because his nose has, in actuality, collapsed due to hard drug abuse in his real life?
The whole premise is that these three brothers go to India on a spiritual quest. That's all well and good. Anderson no doubt (I haven't seen the film) employs the location nicely with a usually fairly fine sense of cinematography (although I don't know who he regularly uses for cinematography).
And, it's my understanding that Anderson smartly places the characters on a train during much of the movie, allowing for a journey into the neurotic inner spaces of said characters' psyches and an observation of their own dynamics mined for black comedy.
But back to this whole India and spiritual quest thing. Yeah, The Beatles went there in '68 as everyone knows (or should know). Hinduism is, in many ways, a bastard offshoot of Buddhism mixed with Islam. And the Indian people themselves, let's look at them. They are not an indigenous race, not really. They are basically the offspring of British colonists mixed with the indigenous darker peoples of the region for the most part. And then there's the whole thing with the cows. Hey, I'm all for free range cattle, but to treat cows like gods is a little nutball in my opinion. They've even gotten to placing identification on every cow in India to make sure they are getting along in the god-like way that they should. At this point you may be asking to yourself what business I have to denigrate the Hindu religion. I'm not dissuaded. Not one whit. The Hindu "religion" is so highly politicized that they believe in a fucking caste system. A class system...a pre-assigned pecking order from fucking birth! And it's obviously a way for the rich to stay rich and control the women by only offering a change in caste through marraige.
Now true, there is some freedom of religion within India. Although nine out of ten Indians are Hindus, some are Buddhists, some are Siks, some are Jains; and even less are Muslim or Christian.
In essence, India doesn't seem like all that spiritual of a place to me, its history notwithstanding. Seems many interests wanted a piece of India as a point of trade between Europe and the Middle East with the Far East. Seems more like a place that the Muslims and then the British (mainly) have plundered where a highly disproportionate percentage of the population live in abject poverty. Yet it's still regarded as this "highly spiritual place." I suppose mostly because Guatama was born there and Ghandi did his nonviolence hunger strike thing there during the last century. I suppose India desperately needs the tourism though.
I know, I know I should just relax, It's only a movie, after all. But still...it's telling that I wonder how much of the above, if any, is even remotely alluded to in the film which is set in India. I suppose maybe the sacred cows thing and perhaps the Maharishi Mahesh/Beatles thing may get passing mentions.
At any rate, I hope I've amused you.
There is this one great rock carving though,
The Descent from the Ganges.
Wonder if it's the film. If it's not, that's a damn shame. And, of course, Hindus still believe in washing themselves in the Ganges river even though it's, by all accounts, highly polluted and contaminated.
As you may know, you've probably spoken with an Indian at some point recently if you've called a customer service number. Guess it's cheaper to reroute long distance calls to foreign countries all the way on the other side of the planet and have you speak with an underpaid indentured servant than it is to pay an American a decent living wage to do the same job.