Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars on 22 Feb 2009. The winners have done India proud. Although the Indian movie entry (in the best foreign film category) got lost midway and could not even reach the final list of nominees, I try to appease myself with the fact that Slumdog Millionaire was based on an Indian backdrop, has an all Indian cast and involved quite a few Indians otherwise as well.
The movie does not misrepresent anything and this very fact hits hard, more so because it is shown by a firang. It is easy to stay ignorant of the facts that are buried within our premises. There is much hue and cry about the movie script and the way it’s directed. We all know how corrupt we Indians are. Haven’t we seen people around pick pocketing and faking their identities as tour guides? Re-sealing the cap of bottled water also does not come as a surprise. But we are also egotist enough not to let anybody else say it. We will do anything to maintain and enhance favorable views of self. We love ourselves and this love makes us forget the bitter realities. India has infrastructural (roads, electricity, water) problems in addition to poverty, illiteracy and corruption. No doubt the movie is a work of art, not because of what it is about; but because of how it is depicted. The movie is about slum’s crowded lanes, hunger struck children, child abuse, cruelty and local gunda raj. Still it manages to leave you happy and besieged with emotions, possibly because of its fairy tale ending.
I do wish although, instead of Slumdog Millionaire, it would have been an all-Indian movie. That would have made me proud in totality.
Regards,
Ribhu
3 comments:
I found the "It is written" thing to be very unsettling. Boyle uses the so-called "destiny", or "fate", to cover up the rather unbelievable series of events of the story. In fact, I think, that in one way or the other, he wants to show that without pure chance, you can't even hope of surviving in a scum-filled place like India. Is that reality? I really don't seem to share the director's vantage point.
At places, the film also seems to preach a lesson to the Indians that Americans are the only people who possess kindness and forgiveness. (remember the scene in which one of the American tourists says 'I'll show you the real America' to teenage Jamal and gives him money, like a bunch of angels?) I don't think there's even a grain of truth in this depiction.
A 'work of art'? Sorry, count me out...
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