PASSAGE THROUGH INDIA 'DARJEELING LIMITED' TRAIN RIDE PRETTY TRIPPY FOR ACTORS, DIRECTOR.

Byline: STORIES BY BOB STRAUSS

>FILM WRITER

Wes Anderson is known for obsessively controlling every smidgen of each frame of his films -- "Bottle Rocket," "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic."

So what's he doing making a film in famously disorderly India? On a moving train, no less?

Having a great time, apparently. And really making an effort to loosen up.

"I felt that India was a place where so many things were going to happen that would surprise us, that we should use those anytime we can," the 38-year-old director says of his latest tragedy-laced comedy, "The Darjeeling Limited." "That was sort of how we worked. We tried to incorporate things into the movie that we discovered."

The tale of three estranged brothers -- Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack Whitman (Jason Schwartzman) -- reuniting on a train trip across the Rajasthan desert a year after their father's death, "Darjeeling" bears many of the qualities we've come to expect from Anderson's movies.

Depressed, quirky characters; '60s British Invasion soundtrack (emphasis on the brother band The Kinks this time); single-take scenes so symmetrical they're kind of deranged -- there's no mistaking who made this movie.

But the foreign setting does seem to open up the piece in some intangible way that reflects the vague spiritual quest eldest brother Francis is dragging his siblings on. Anderson's piercing insights into family dynamics and wayward psychology is augmented here by an acceptance that things often just barrel along the messy, haphazard way that they do.

Of course, this required a lot of planning. But the genesis of the project was also uncharacteristically free-form.

Anderson began writing "Darjeeling" a few years ago in Paris, where he lives part-time now. Schwartzman, whose first movie role was in "Rushmore," was there playing Louis XVI in his cousin Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" movie, and after work he and Wes would wander the city, talking about family and romantic entanglements and various other subjects the film would eventually explore.

At a later point, another of Jason's cousins and Wes' collaborators, Roman Coppola, was brought into the writing circle.

Then they all took off to India for a month, just to see if any of what they'd dreamed up was credible.

"It didn't feel like a creative process, or dictating where these three guys go," Schwartzman recalls. "It seemed like we were more hoping for answers to questions that we were asking. That was a really fun experience, because it seemed like no one knew the answer.

"And when we went to India, we were surprised that a lot of what we had imagined turned out to be true, which was exciting. But what was also exciting was all of the things that we saw that we could have never imagined, which helped us complete the script. We became like those three brothers and engaged in most of the things that happened in the movie."

When Schwartzman returned to India to actually play one of the Whitmans, he, Wilson, Brody and much of the crew stayed in a hotel that was more like a home, with a communal dining area and no locks on anyone's doors. So the actors tended to hang out with each other, often in their pajamas, after work.

This after spending all day in close quarters on the film's rolling set. Though the title train was designed especially for the movie, it was closely based on the real rail cars that are still the main mode of transportation in India.

In order to shoot fast and nimbly on the moving location, Anderson and his usual cinematographer, Robert Yeoman, had movie lights built into the ceiling of the cramped compartment where the three brothers get reacquainted and on each other's nerves. Makeup, costume and other standard production departments were dispensed with. And instead of trailers, actors shared a small rest space between takes on the train.

Which could come to a sudden, unpredictable halt.

"The train could stop at any time to yield to another train, or a cow," Schwartzman notes. "So you really do feel the heat. I've never been on a set that stopped."

"There was a lot to figure out because it's a big thing to accomplish," Anderson notes. "To get a train that's going to work in the right way that's going to allow us to do what we need to do, and when can we do it and where can we do it. We're working within their system, and we're the visiting company, so we had to kind of work around what they're there to do, which is ship people and objects all over India. But they found a way to do it."

For Brody, "Darjeeling's" only American actor who was new to the Anderson ensemble, the tension between precision and randomness was great, challenging fun.

"The reason things are so unique about his films is that they're really well thought-out," "The Pianist" Oscar winner says. "The choreography, including the camera's participation in every scene, is incredibly important.

"He shoots moving masters, single shots, and that was very exciting because everything -- every focus pull, every gesture -- has to gel for the shot to work. You really had to be on your game."

This was Brody's second visit to India, and he says that during the movie production, "I really learned to embrace the chaos of the place. I think there's a lot of beauty in that. It gives you a much greater understanding of how vast and complex the world is. And yet somehow, through all the chaos that goes on there, there's some order. It's amazing."

As for Anderson, who's often characterized as someone who lives and works in a hermetically controlled world of his own creation, little about the Indian adventure appears to have fazed him.

"This, it was a real thing," Anderson says of "Darjeeling." "Every day, we were taking a train into the desert, and there was something really happening that we all experienced together and that found its way into the movie. It's always different when it's real."

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) BROTHERS GRIM

Bringing family baggage on 'Darjeeling Limited'

(2 -- 3 -- color) Waris Ahluwalia, left, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman on the set of "The Darjeeling Limited," which filmed on a moving train in India. Says director Wes Anderson, far left on opposite page, "I felt that India was a place where so many things were going to happen that would surprise us, that we should use those anytime we can."

(4) In light of Owen Wilson's alleged suicide attempt, questions have arisen about his state of mind during the making of "The Darjeeling Limited."

(5) NATALIE PORTMAN