It’s the most appreciated movie in the last few months (2008), winning several awards at various film festivals all over the globe. So I was excited enough to the see it, expecting another movie which will be added in my “Movies to See Before You Die” list. No doubt it is one of the best movies of recent times but sadly I didn’t find it worth adding my “Must See Movies” List and I will surely give you my reasons for that here in the end.
Firstly talking about the movie, an interesting observation is that if the viewer is not told about who directed this flick, then, he is bound to take it as a movie made by an Indian or a person with an Indian origin. But surprisingly it is directed by “Danny Boyle” of ‘Trainspotting’ and ’28 Days Later’ fame. Though he has done a brilliant job but in my opinion he selected this subject and directed this movie keeping in mind the festival circuit and attention he would get because of the Indian touch and feel of the movie. You might get my point more clearly after watching it and reading my points at the end of this review.
The story of this movie is about a young teenage boy winning millions at a TV Show (KBC of Indian Television) and how each question asked by the anchor has a relation to his past life. He knows most of the answers as all the questions have something similar to the circumstances of his real life. So the anchor at one point of time doubts that he may be cheating in the show. In order to investigate his loyalty, he is handed over to the police for one night, but nothing is found against him and he is allowed to play the game, the next final day.
Each question put to him in the game show has a sequence attached to it in the screenplay which is well written and enjoyable. The growth of the children from a small age to their teenage youth is well executed. But the thrill which should have been there regarding the game is missing. May be it’s because from the title itself you already know that the contestant is going to win. Moreover, the narration of the movie is more towards an artistic offbeat film (like that of “Salaam Bombay”), which reduces its chances of becoming a big hit in the Indian circuit (But may do well in multiplexes).
Performances wise everybody does a fine job especially Dev Patel and all the children featuring in the movie. Their expressions and dialogue delivery has been directed perfectly and they never seem to be acting. Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla & Mahesh Manjrekar are just fine doing their parts with nothing extra-ordinary to talk about. But they are lucky enough to get this project which has become world famous by now. One thing i couldnt understand was that why Anil Kapoor did not want the slum boy to win in his show and why he tried to give him the wrong answer. Camerwork showing the slums and riots is brilliant. Infact the opening scene is the most well shot sequence with all the kids running followed by the policemen.
Musically, there are no full length songs in the movie and the soundtrack alone is more enjoyable separately. The best song is “Jai Ho” which was shockingly refused by Subhash Ghai for his movie “Yuvraaj”. The background music is superb giving an ample support to the direction. A. R. Rahman gives another good score in this International project and has already won praises and awards, making his presence felt in the International Film & Music Circles. We are really proud to have him as a National Treasure.
Now coming to the points why this movie could not impress me as expected and why it is not being added to my “Movies to See Before You Die” List.
1. A few decades back (in sixties to eighties), there was an “Art Movies” wave going on in our Indian Movie world when film-makers were making movies based on Indian Culture, mainly portraying the poverty and backward side of India. They were showing the poor and exploited farmers, their extreme conditions, beggars, starving children, famines and droughts and depicting India as a suffering country. To some extent it was true then, and due to this realistic cinema and so called artistic creations, most of those film-makers got recognition all over the world.
Without pointing names, I would also like to add that these were the movies which were more or less responsible of giving India, its “Poor Country of Beggars, Farmers & Snake Charmers” image to the world.
A similar kind of attempt was made by Mira Nair in “Salaam Bombay” in 1988, showing the red light area, poverty and slums of Bombay in her movie and getting international recognition thereafter.
Here in “Slumdog Millionaire”, I see the same intentions again by the director Danny Boyle, showing the dirty slums, poor living conditions, begging mafia, tortured children, poverty, riots and racial tension in the current Mumbai, giving it again a picture of a backward city with only the illegal slums spread all over. I doubt this was done intentionally to grab international attention, because if you see the movie, you will feel that the same impact could have been given without showing the Mumbai City in a bad form.
2. In support of my above point, another plot added with purpose in the movie is “The Taj-Mahal Sequence”. This again seems to be deliberately added in the screenplay to show the famous “Wonder of The World” in the movie and have more festival feel to the project. In fact as you will see the movie, you would feel that the “Taj-Sequence” has no contribution to make in the script and could have been easily avoided. But since the director wanted to show “The Real India” so “The Taj” has to be there in the movie, otherwise it would have been incomplete.
3. Other strong objection or disagreement I have is with the title of the movie, “Slumdog Millionaire”, calling all the people living in the Slums as Dogs. This kind of expression is not an artistic liberty in my opinion. The hero of the movie is from the slums, working as a “Chai-Wala” in a call center, but can speak good English. Interestingly, the director chooses to call his hero, “A Dog from the Slums who becomes Millionaire” aka “Slumdog Millionaire”. The moment I got the real meaning of the title after watching the movie, it was a let-down for me. I am sure this title would not have been used if the movie was about the poor Black people living in the slums in the West. But for the Indians you can call them “Dogs”. Not acceptable…..
Infact, in the opening scene of the Game Show, when the teenage boy introduces himself as a “Chai-Wala”, then the host of the show, Anil Kapoor, makes fun of him and his work. This was simply not a good piece of writing and direction as no Host in reality could have done it in his show with his contestant.
4. Regarding the riots scenes in the movie, I am not in favour of using any minor actors/children in a scene showing racial tension and racial killings. I hope the directors know their social responsibilities while shooting such sequences with children and young teenagers. Since a well directed scene of riots can leave any good or bad kind of effect on the psyche of the child, so I think this is rather important point to think for all the people related to film-making.
5. I also found some weird scenes in the movie, which are disgusting as hell. Director Danny Boyle surely has some liking with the toilet, flushes and waste material. I remember a scene in his “Trainspotting” where a character puts his face in the commode full of waste and then his whole body flows into it. A similar kind of scene is here when the child is in an open toilet just covered from the sides and open from below. Suddenly he hears that Amitabh Bachhan’s helicopter has landed there for a shoot. Now his door is locked from outside and he cannot move out of the toilet to meet his favourite star. In order to grab this golden opportunity the child decides to jump from the hole below into the waste material. He then moves out of the dirty pool (as if a swim-suit girl is coming out of the pool), covered with waste all over his body and goes on to take the autograph of his hero.
Now what is the use or significance of this scene in the movie, it was completely out of my understanding. Giving artistic touches to a movie is a different thing but you don’t have to be disgusting for that. In “Trainspotting”, the justification can be that the scene and characters were related to drug addiction and its impact, but here I was unable to see any justification of this scene in the movie.
6. There are many other flaws also in the widely appreciated script. Like I don’t know where in India we teach the Classic “The 3 Musketeers” to 4-6 years slum kids and what is the explanation for the excellent English accent of the lead character Jamaal.
So in a nutshell, no doubt it’s a well directed and tightly scripted movie appreciated world-wide by all and it may be one of the better movies of 2008 but I couldn’t appreciate the treatment given to Mumbai city and the kind of INDIA shown in the movie, only to grab an international attention. It’s time now for the World to form a much better image of INDIA and other Asian countries fast moving towards development.
For me its not a masterpiece as it is being projected and with respect to all the awards it has won, I cannot add “Slumdog Millionaire” to my “Movie To See Before You Die” List.
Rating : 3 / 5
(Since I have gone into great details for this review, I would really appreciate your valuable comments on the same. And I would like to discuss this topic further with all my readers. So eagerly waiting for your words).
