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The biggest problem with this movie is that it has won the Oscars and it is directed by a well known director from Hollywood. After seeing the movie I have come to the conclusion that if it was made by a Bollywood director with no firang connection at all, it would have hardly won, one or two awards in the filmfare that too after facing stiff competition from a Karan Johar or a Ramgopal Verma movie. If one has seen the other movies in contention for this year like ‘The curious case of Benjamin Button’ or ‘The Reader’, you cannot blame them for believing that the Oscars this year was horribly rigged. Trust me, I haven’t missed too many Oscar winning movies till date and this one was the biggest disappointment ever. After carefully considering all the prejudices that I have as an Indian audience, I still cannot digest the fact that it has actually swept the Oscars. It’s me who is either insane or the Oscars jury is. Either I am too naïve or ignorant to understand the greatness of the movie, or being painfully defensive who gets offended by anything that does not show my country in a positive light.
Let’s start with the target audience and the commercial aspect of the film. Well, one has to give credit to Boyle for this. He was spot on in choosing the mass audience. He made a gem of a movie to please his western counterparts just like Karan Johar or the Chopras does to please the college going spoilt brats. It seems that he knew well in advance the requirements of the Oscar committee this time around. The protagonist of the film, well his name is Jamal, a Muslim, lost his mother in a riot and guess what; you can actually see a glimpse of saffron cladded rioters in the background. If you are done with the predictability of this scene, then take this. A kid dressed as Lord Rama painted in blue with a bow and arrow in his hand stands as the sentinel of doom in the midst of the riot and manages to leave an indelible impression on Jamal’s young mind. If BJP comes into power don’t be surprised Mr.Boyle if you see a desi version of the film with young Jesus standing in the same manner in the midst of the Kandhamal riot. I agree with you Mr.Boyle that things like Rape, child prostitution, forced begging, slums and of course call centers are realities in India but the manner in which you have forced all of these into poor Jamal’s life makes me believe that you were trying to conform to the preconceived notions of your fellow countrymen .Now if this was not enough, why do you have to make the host of the show heartlessly mocking at Jamal for being a chaiwala.Ok I have to accept it as your tool for heightening the dramatic aspect of the movie. I have to accept that a 12 year old blind boy who begs for a living knows that a 100 dollar note has a picture of Benjamin Franklin on it. I have to also accept that Jamal with his background and upbringing knows who Samuel Colt is. I accept all of these with ease because I have also accepted that Sunny Deol can single handedly take on the Pakistan army, that Rajnikant can fight with a mob of 500 people with a towel in his hand. I am used to all these improbabilities that exist in the down-market Bollywood and Tollywood movies but I never knew that it is contagious, that one day it can infect Hollywood with such audacity. And guess what Simon Beaufoy gets the Oscars for best adapted screenplay, 2009, Incredible!!
Let’s come down to the casting of the film.Dev Patel as Jamal Malik was a little hard to digest, too British to portray a character from the Mumbai slums.Freida Pinto, too frigid to portray any emotions, Anil Kapoor too dramatic. The only saving grace was Irfan Khan as usual and the slum childrens.Now the music of the film and A.R.Rahman.Well I am sure Rahman must have laughed his heart out when he got the news of receiving the Oscar. For years he has created some incredible magic for the Indian audience and we still had the time and patience to listen to Anu Malik.And now just when he threw some garbage from his basket to the western world, look what they have done to it. The only uniqueness of the film was the usage of the game show device. It worked and it worked well for the film but come to think about it, any day Amitabh Bacchan and Siddharth Basu would have walked away with the Academy Award if there was a separate category for game shows in the Oscars.
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Hello Blogger,
ReplyDeleteGood to read your comments on Slumdog. But unfortunately I totally disagree on all counts with your views. I think you have totally missed it.
First of all, it is a cinematization of a novel and hardly depicting any reality. Had that been the case then many many Oscar winners like ET,Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Benhur etc. would not have won the coveted prize. By definition,cinema is a a story telling medium. The art is how creatively you can translate the story into celluloid. However bitter it may sound, there is no Indian cine maker who has the ability or creativeness to make movies of this kind of length and breath. Our cinema is devoid of good stories and are always raptured around the Rajs and Kirans ( sorry Sharukh ). Slumdog is not about how a boy manages to remember the US president on $100 dollar bill, not about how a kid dressed as Lord Rama makes an indelible mark in his memory lane. Its about the spirit of life against all odds and the pursuit to overcome the oddities. You don't need to accept rather you need to appreciate the art in which Boyle has convinced his audience. The beauty of real art lies in the fact that it doesn't require someone to accept rather we fall in love with it as much as we loathe about our own desi deols or rajnikants.
Last but not the least, many people fail to understand the fact that Music categories in Oscars is not about "the best music in the past year" for that we have another award called Grammy. But Oscar ceneters around music as background scores in the selected few movies for that year. Therefore, Rahman's selection was an automatic choice. It was not garbage by any means nor it is the best what we usually get from Rahman. He has scored plenty of good music for many trash desi flicks. We should rejoice!
Hi Gorky!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100%.Just want to add that we Indians make super love stories...undying love, love forever,sacrificial love,etc.Usually our horror films are comic and thrillers are like science fiction but when the firangs make love stories...usually they become soft porn!! Bollywood and Hollywood have made masterpieces and trash and cater to different tastes.It is the 'taste' of the judges that make the difference.You know what I mean...LOL
We all have our own expectations of a movie some like watching movies which depict reality and some like watching senseless stories written for the amusement of the idle,if that was the case
ReplyDeleteMr Boyle could have made some of us believe that a riot broke out between dinosaurs and the extra-terrestrials.I agree with Gorky's review to a great extent Slumdog Millionaire winning the oscar was a shock to me and I bet Mr Boyle would have shared the same feeling after winning the oscar since this is the worst movie he has made.After all said and done hats off to your timing Mr Boyle you were spot on.Happy Recession Mr Boyle ;)