Danny Boyle sucks balls…

Jason

My son and I suffered the ignominy of having been stopped by the security guards at the Cinema theater entrance that was screening “Slumdog Millionaire”. The problem was that my son was under aged according to the guards, and the film was rated ‘Adults Only’. After pleading with the guard for a full five minutes pulling out the ace defense of ‘Father knows best what is good for son, not the censor board’, we were allowed inside the theater. My son and I secretly admired our audacity in the dark shadows of the cinema hall. After getting ourselves some nachos and not-so-fresh salsa, we settled into our seats and got ready to watch the much hyped oscar contender - ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.

Much later, on our exit from the hall after watching the movie, we secretly thought to ourselves and confessed to each other later, that we wished the guard had not allowed us in after all.

I really feel that this was a left handed delivery of a western accolade meant to thank India for exposing it’s underbelly in all its glory. Hairy private parts and all.

However, I am not here to rant but to understand. So understand we will.

SDM has a few tested strong threads that make the western movie creation a huge success. Here is a movie with an accepted Operating System, to use a PC paradigm. ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ and its equivalent of ‘KBC’ are game formats that the east and west agree upon. We know the anchor, participants, the nervousness, the lifelines, the stupid errors and the mind boggling success stories of the game show.

While India knows all too well some of the rogue runaway applications such as slums, children forced to beg, religious riots, gang warfare, the west on the other hand needs occasional confirmation to the ingrained accepted truths regarding an under developed country.

Such rogue runaway applications are hidden and unknowable, unless exposed by the glare of a western light and camera to a western audience.

Moving gracefully but rapidly between a known Operating System and its many unknowable rogue applications, the western audience is being helped in taking a flying leap from the known to the unknown and back, including a vicarious slow motion dip in a cesspool. The karmic rights of dipping in the Ganges to absolve us of our sins are definitely not real and ‘oh soo yesterday’. The dip in the cesspool is the order of the day here in the Real India.

It happens to us everyday and we don’t bat an eyelid before we take the plunge into the Real India. We are sometimes forced to bat an eyelid or two to stop getting shit in our eyes. But then again we were not the intended audience, were we? We were the intended characters, remember?

About twenty years ago, while I was roaming the western world, I happened to read a daily newspaper in a city called Milwaukee in Wisconsin USA. The Milwaukee Sentinel had dispatched a brave journalist to report happenings from India. There was no Iraq or Afganistan war or even the 9/11 attacks to write about or worry the safe American citizens back then. It got to be boring reporting just a cyclical economic downturn. The brave journalist wrote about elephants and tigers that might leap out at you from the roadsides. He even wrote about a snake charmer climbing up a rope and vanishing into thin air. The small Indian student community was outraged at the false reporting of New India and I philosophized, much to myself, that such journalistic forays were meant to keep the western audience convinced that they live in a *known* world. Nothing has changed my western friends, said the journalist. The snakes, elephants and tigers are still roaming the streets of India. You already know what I am confirming to you from out here. Don’t waste your breath with a trip. Read the newspaper.

The western audience has come a long way and will not be fooled so easily by that. It will no longer fall for the Indian rope trick anymore. But hell, the dark secrets, the real truths are still there lurking in the slums of India irrespective of the glossy portrayal by Thomas Friedman of how Infosys has caught up to the ways of the hyper start-ups in the Silicon Valley. The world may be flat Thomas, but sure as hell butt-ugly in spots. Like the proverbial doubting Thomas poking his finger into a wound to ascertain the real resurrected master, a slow-mo dip in the slum to convince us that the underbelly is real and out there.

The western reaction to this movie is obvious. Tell me the truth, show me the slums, and convince me that I live in a better world! Give me a contrast, tell me life isn’t so bad in the land of plenty.

Thanks Dave for the movie. Seems to me that an Oscar will be a token appreciation to a punchered step-knee tyre of a Bolywood steam-roller. Is there nobody to stand up and notice the Emperor’s clothes? Maybe his bizarre underbelly, with hairy privates and all is leaving us dumb founded?

Always remember, characters in a movie are not supposed to wash up and transform into sanitized audiences of a movie. I wish the security guards really barred you from doing that.

Now take a plunge, will ya?

Overall I will not have such film in my CD library.

a r rehman makes great music - personally i feel that his other/earlier works esp Roja were the best - but thats not the issue - he deserves the award for his creativity -

apart from the quality or lack of it in the film -
just analyse who benefits if such a hollywood-ized indian-scene and story movie gets such huge exposure and limelight?
and do remember it is not a Indian movie -
its essentially made by a foreign chap and by a foreign studio and foreign technical staff foreign actors etc
not someone who would understand India per se
its a story set in India and told by a foreign chap

i wonder about his perspective (or rather the lack of it) on India

it reminds me of the few years in the 1990s where Indian girls suddenly started getting Miss Univ and Miss World type awards -
that was the period where max MNC branded cosmetics and healthcare products were launched here
the pagents provided the necessary exposure and foothold for these products in the huge Indian market

similarly now most hollywood studios have entered the indian market in 2008, esp on the marketing / distributor side.
the past 4-5 big films starring major indian actors have been flops translated as heavy losses for these players.
Indian film studios/technical people are not as good as the hollywood studios - as better cameras editing tech etc is available there.
Indian tech people cannot compete with the overseas tech people -

this movie has been used to set a benchmark for the technical expertise -
and i foresee that several Indian studios will now go over to the ‘foreign’ tech
which might translate into losses for the Indian technical jobs
second is the market - unless the china movie trade opens up India is the biggest market available

and on a personal note -
a director makes a movie as he ’sees’ the story - have no issues with that
(actually i loved the book so was interested in seeing the movie)

but if danny boyle ’sees’ India as what has been portrayed in the movie - i am really sorry for him and all those who think that it was a great portrayal

my India is NOT a trash heap

so was just analysing the movie as a event and what it could portend for the future of the Indian film industry

and if the beauty pagents are any indication i doubt any movie made India by an Indian chap using Indian technical staff actors etc would ever get an oscar

Because ultimately, you are a parochial indie posturing emptiness.

Slumdog Millionaire is a rags-to-riches fairy tale, that along its way tries to show _somewhat_ of the dark underbelly of life in the Indian slums. It is not a documentary. Note the key word here is “Fairy Tale”. Jamal is a fairy tale hero - ‘Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves’ set in India. Kids from the slums do not go on game shows and win 20 million rupees in reality, you know.

On those merits, Slumdog MIllionaire is a brilliant film.

Trying to plumb greater depths or accuracy in its plot is bound to see one disappointed, and is rather pointless. Slumdog is an allegorical tale about having the tenacity to love and to believe in a better future in the face of the evil of world. No more… and no less.

I agree with you but not entirely. As an Indian watching this film I am aware that it is a film about India but not an Indian film directed by an Indian. With all due respect to Danny Boyle and his crew, I found a number of sequences were very average in its direction. For instance the sequence when Jamal looks on while Frieda is making sandwich for Javed and so on… They should have done some more research on how we Indians react or behave if they making a realistic film. And, I feel that acting by Dev and Frieda is just about okay.. (no I didn’t expect them to be even nominated for BAFTA..) Though the first set of kids playing Jamal, Salim and Latika (the real slum kids) were fabulous and are the soul of the film..Net net, nice film but a little overhyped… Thanks

A few other things that bothered me:
- Who Wants to Be a Millonaire is not a live show.
- Why does Jamal use a lifeline for the obvious question of what does it say on the national emblem of India, the choices of which _____ triumph(s) are A. The truth; B. Lies; C. Fashion or D. Money? Not that I’d ever know but I can pretty easily figure it out from the choices given. Is he an idiot? And the rationale for he gives to the police guy is pure BS. The real answer is that the remaining two lifelines were needed for extra “drama” for later.
- Tourists do not hand out $100 bills to natives. Of course, this is another contrivance for one of the questions but it could have been contrived a bit better.
- How does a blind Indian kid know who is on American currency? Moreover, how does a blind, non-English speaking kid know and a sighted kid, who is fluent in English, does not?
- As to to the matter of how Jamal and Salim know English, in answer to eddy, English is not a native language in India, it is an OFFICIAL language that is taught in school. There is almost no chance that two street urchins would pick it up on their own, learn it fluently and then converse almost exclusively in it between themselves.

There are other things that bother me but I’ve gone on long enough.

i thought the movie was one of the few that captured the true, intense realities of some indian regions and lifestyles.

We are happy that we can “see” the slums but we can only do that because the deep tragedy of reality is covered by layers of beautiful cinematography and good looking actors, completely unrealistic. We think we get the third world via these movies, but we don’t… we get an Hollywoodization of it, a fairy tale version…with an huge happy ending.

Bollywood is something else….. it provides a dream, a projection of pure Indian aspirations…. Slumdog is a projection of how the rich world wants the third world to be: messy and cute, fun, colorful…. and not too desperate… so we do not feel to bad about being the exploiters, the colonizers….for this I think is dangerous.
Where is film criticism these days???

I ditched Danny Boyle after The Beach…. I think he’s one of these directors destroyed by their own fame…. he seems to have understood immediately how the mainstream hollywood machine works and he uses it well…..
Respect.

Ah, Kevin!!! Can’t thank you enough for that… I was left completely disoriented… But I seemed to be the only one… The audience even appalauded at the end - a rarity here in Montreal.

Guess there’s some social pressure to “like” a Globe-winning film

Prime concern here is the article that i just happned to stumble upon…..reason for which being the movie “Slumdog millionair” , which i just happned to watch a couple of hours ago, and was intrigued or disappointed by the word ‘MESSY’ used in this article…..and hence my point of view.

You do not realise that inorder to hear sweet music one’s fingers need to stike the piano…..,You how ever do like the music you heard but find the striking fingers…..to be….. ‘MESSY’ …..thats your point of view.

Good luck with that…..

I loved the movie……very much close to my alltime favourite,……reasons for which are not apparently appropriate.
God Bless.

it’s not a bad review. you make a couple of good points. overall it’s a junk movie. any average bollywood director would’ve come up with that much.
my concern is more with the politics of it. how it shows the third world poor. you haven’t really touched on that part.

prakash

There were those who loathed “Dr. Zhivago” and “The Sound of Music”.

A work of art touches something in you or it doesn’t. Am I the only one who thought “The Gates” in Central Park a few years ago was the biggest scam since Charles Van Doren?