Strangers In A Strange Land: Screengrab

THE DARJEELING LIMITED (2007)

I still haven't seen "The Hotel Chevalier," a (by all accounts great) short companion film that preceded The Darjeeling Limited at some (but not all venues) during its theatrical run, and I'm still a little ticked off at Wes Anderson for that...but considering how much I hated The Life Aquatic (after loving The Royal Tennenbaums and Rushmore), I was just happy to see one of my favorite directors back in fine, peculiar form with this dreamy, visually gorgeous tale of three newly fatherless brothers grieving their way across India in search of the inscrutable mother who abandoned them. Lighter and funnier than its synopsis would indicate, the film is nevertheless steeped in quiet melancholy (personified by the mournful, meta presence of Owen Wilson, pre-suicide attempt) and a timely sense of hopeful fatalism. Like any number of strangers in strange lands before them, the brothers find relief from alienation in the alien landscapes of their journey as those simultaneously indifferent and transcendent surroundings help draw their collective gaze from their own navels. (Great soundtrack, too.)

THE MAGGIE (1954)

A slightly bitterer precursor to Local Hero, The Maggie has American businessman Calvin B. Marshall (Paul Douglas) hiring a grossly incompetent boat to carry his furniture to a prospective summer house in Kiltarra. Led by one Mactaggert (Alec Mackenzie), it's not so much a fair fight between wealthy American and wily Scots as an absolute walkover. The crew are fun, but they're actively incompetent and opportunistic; what they do to a Marshall willing to pay them more than reasonably is hilarious but also kind of unconscionable. And he likes it!  Phoning home at one point, he announces "I'm developing a very strange sense of humor."  There are no clips on YouTube, so the one above features the wonderfully character-actor-ish Douglas on What's My Line?, adopting a Cockney accent for no justifiable reason.

WOMAN IN THE DUNES (1964)

"If they're afraid of the sand, have them tackle it scientifically" announces exasperated entomologist Niji Jumpei (Eiji Okada) after he's forced