I watched this film finally yesterday after what seemed like a very long wait - especially after reading about it almost everyday in the paper for the last two weeks. BAFTA, Golden Globes, now the Oscars. Wow.
I’m very happy for A.R. Rahman – he’s finally getting the global acclaim for his music that he deserves but this is definitely not his finest. But it’s still understandable – the world hasn’t heard his really good stuff. It’s a start. I truly hope he wins at the Oscars as well.
The movie was stuff of brilliance. The irony, the technical aspects, the plot (credit for this of course goes to Vikas Swarup who wrote the book on which the movie is based – Q & A), great performances – especially the young actors, good music, etc. To people like Amitabh Bachan who have a problem with the movie saying that the film is “Portraying India as a third world dirty under belly developing nation,” well, easy for you to say Amitabh ‘ji’, sitting in your plush little ostentatious bungalow in Juhu or wherever.
These things unfortunately do happen in 
This movie may not be completely new to Indians familiar with Bollywood because we’ve seen the vibrant colours, the social issues, VT station in all its glory and all that before so we may not understand why the Western World is going ga-ga over this movie but how can you blame them? They don’t get to see what we see... Not enough good movies get sent to the Oscars from
As for Slumdog Millionaire - watch the film. I'd watch it again.
5 comments:
It's all pretty clear, actually, contrary to this whole myth about people not understanding. It did well in the West for the reasons you stated. It isn't doing well here for the same reasons- people watch it only out of curiosity; there isn't much shown there that we don't know about already. Hasn't half the world read Shantaram by now?
The Oscars are a western award, and so NATURALLY since they found the film good, they shower it with nominations. What saddens me is that they have a cliched idea of what India is about. You see, if you ask them about a wonderful movie like Swades, which showcases the real India as well, then they don't know about it.
Slumdog was made with the intention of entertaining, so naturally it works. That said, a LOT of things went wrong in the movie, and even from the Western point of view, the 10 nominations for all the categories in which it was nominated (check them out- www.oscar.com) appear to be a case of 'take a movie and historicize it now, its been a few years', which the West does a LOT. It's a great movie,and definitely worth a second watch but it's not all that it's made out to be.
Thanks for the insightful review. I've added it to my 'to watch' list.
It IS very good.But like Sharan said, it was made with the intention of entertaining.I respect that.However, what scares me is 'slum tourism';to portray the slums as an interesting thing, worth to be visited.
Apparently, the slum dwellers of Dharavi are unhappy with the movie.They say that the film captures only the negative aspects, and there are positive things as well.
It saddens me what a narrow view the west has of the east.This is how stereotypes are created.
Cut 'them' a little slack! It's a 2-hr MOVIE, you can't show everything about the 'real' India!
What saddens me, is that this movie, (no body ever raised a finger when Vikas Swarup - who is very much INDIAN wrote the book!) is becoming ground for the whole 'us vs. them' debate!
ALL movies are full of stereotypes, Bollywood is famous for them, so why all this sudden hue-and-cry about this ONE movie?!?
Anyway, the movie is not even supposed to be ABOUT India, the movie is about Jamal and his quest for Love and his journey from rags to riches, everything else is secondary and if the person watching the movie gets 'slum-tourism' out of the film, the fault is not the film-maker's, the fault is the viewers.
The movie was meant to sell.If you want to make a movie you never look for a grey region.If its a slum, its as slum as a slum can be.
For the westerners, India is one very big sweatshop.The movies and books celebrate the "occasional" hero( the white tiger, if you may) and not the sweatshop.
And whose "real india" is it anyway?
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