Stereotyping of Indians come with exceptional camera and allied technical specifications in the Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire. The movie relates each question in the Indian version of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' to the life of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) in his journey to find his lady love Latika (Frieda Pinto). The direction inputs are offered by Danny Boyle. It has perfect contrast in presentation of sky high buildings, the Hindu deity Lord Rama, angry mob killing mercilessly at Muslim dominated area, call centres and Jamal Malik - the Chaiwala. The movie is based on the debut Novel "Q & A" written by Vikas Swarup.
Finding her is not that easy, but the hero braves all odds. It begins with the last Rs 20 Million question and a flashback to his childhood.
The unfortunate part is Jamal's brother Salim, who stabs his trust by first leaving childhood love Latika while running from a centre meant to train kids to become experts in begging. They ran just before Jamal's eyes were to be spooned out! Second when Jamal found her again, his brother kept Latika in captivity.
SM has the Taj Mahal, to a kid whose eyes were spooned out pose them to fetch better Alms. From brothels, world of gangsters and of course a ray of hope, exactly its the show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'. The show host (played by Anil Kapoor) feds in wrong answer to a question Jamal did not know the answer to. Still Jamal chooses the right answer.
This gets the host to consider that Jamal might be a fraud, cheat, and hands him over to the Police. The contention behind his arrest was, you see Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers do not go beyond Rs. 16,000, what can a slumdog possibly know?? The slumdog was on Rs. 10 Million! Jamal manages to comes out clean based on the narration of explanation about how he knew answer to each of those questions. And he knew that a 100 dollar note has Benjamin Franklin, but did not know that a Rs. 1000 note has Mahatma Gandhi on it. During the night in police custody, he braved the electric shocks, and sticks while being tied to the roof.
Its not money but the belief that Latika would be watching, takes him on the show. She watched and managed to gain Salim's mercy and runs away from the clutches of the gangster. At last they meet, in a safer place. Salim is dead, and Javed Bhai (the gangster) too has been killed. The movie ends with a safe place for Latika and Jamal. With an optimism to be together forever.
Please share your opinion /comments on following :
- Whether the movie would have won so many accolades had it been directed by an Indian?
- Does the movie has an inherent advantage of being directed by a western, despite the fact that numerous bollywood movies associating with it?
- The sheer fact for winning accolades was that it was genuinely a good movie.
Thought I agree to the third one, and would say that 'Movie is a piece of art and SM has an exceptional narration in the most creative fashion'. This is strengthened from the acclaimed received from Indian music maestro A R Rahman who brought home India's very first Oscars for his compositions in the film.
Before coming down to any criticism on depiction of India, I would urge to please stand corrected, numerous Indian films find close resemblance with it, like Sarak, Contract, etc. Besides movies, let us not forget that the nation is full of hate mongers, always ready to offer offensive comments on people from different identity, this ranges from road rage to religion etc.. you know all the drama right!
So let the world speak of our bad too and let us not be too autocratic on only India Shinning features. Lets try and be good, I mean genuinely good.
