Slumdog Millionaire, GG’s, Oscars and All That
iview Author: Pratik (Cleveland, US)
Email: mailpratik [at] gmail.com
Content: Slumdog Millionaire, GG’s, Oscars and All That
Slumdog Millionaire !! Yes – 4 Golden Globes and all that, and dare I say it, maybe even a few Oscars come February 22nd. Slumdog Millionaire – sweeping away every neighboring nomination in sight. Everybody’s been ga-ga over Slumdog. I don’t think I’ve come across a single bad review on RottenTomatoes.com. Now the Net is a huge, huge medium. You want to look for someone who doesn’t think much of The Godfather, you will find him – and more. And I’m talking about people besides Peter Griffin of Family Guy ( link ). On PFC alone, there are readers who think Slumdog is over-rated.
My biggest issue with Slumdog is the language. One, you want to reach out to the largest market possible, the English-speaking audience, without including too many subtitles. Two (as a result of One), you have actors who probably don’t speak Hindi, let alone English in an Indian accent. Three (probably, as a result of Two), you have characters who have learnt to speak English without much, if at all any, justification. Solution: let your characters speak English. And besides, there’s a reason why Slumdog has not been nominated in the Foreign Language category. Guess what? It does NOT speak a foreign language.
As an Indian movie watcher, it irks me. It irks me when Jamaal Malik, an orphan who’s supposed to have lived and grown up in Bombay (I still call it that) pronounces “Chaupati” like a native Kathiawaadi (Dev Patel is a Gujju after all) – “Cho-paati”. It irks me when Maman’s mouthing English dialogues as soon as the main characters have learnt angrezi. I mean I know it’s not a big deal. Ab ek shabd ki wajah se poori picture ki jaan loge kya? But when you’re in the theater and you’ve given all your attention to the big screen, you feel betrayed, for that little moment. Kuchh khatakta hai. Pata nahin kya. And then you look at every scene thereafter with suspicion. Waiting – waiting for that little blooper, that little fuck-up. It’s not the same movie anymore.
It’s also surprised me how India(n media) wasted no time in claiming custody of the film after it won all the accolades and praise. All of a sudden, Slumdog Millionaire was an Indian film!! Just like that. The film – that is based in India, on Indian characters, spoken in Hindi and mostly English, based on an English book written by an Indian diplomat, adapted to screenplay by a Britisher (who has a French-souding last name), directed by a Britisher, produced by a Britisher, distributed by an American company – is as British as it is Indian. So where was all this Indian love while it was in production?? While it was doing rounds of film festivals?? It’s just mean to steal well-deserved British thunder. Granted they ruled us 60 years back, but still …. saari mithaai akele hi kha jaaoge?
I’m looking forward to how the Indian audience will react to the English version of Slumdog Millionaire. Maybe the Golden Globes have sown enough seeds of optimistism when the audience enters the theater halls. Of course, there’s also the Hindi version to look forward to – Slumdog CROREPATI (dus gunaa zyaada)!! I have a gut feeling that the Hindi version will pack a bigger punch than the Angrejji one.
At the end of all this Slumdog award mania, I’m happy for one person. The recognition of his musical talents was long overdue. The world needs to stand up and take notice of AR Rahman. I somewhat feel that Slumdog was not one of his best works, but theek hai, it doesn’t matter. The man deserved all the attention long before now.
Tags: Danny Boyle, Golden Globe, Oscar, Slumdog Millionaire, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Answer me this, when Hollywood makes film about French Revolution, what should they do?
If we go according to what you say, every second film about a foreign country will be a Foreign Language subtitled movie. There have been hundreds of instances, and that includes classics, when foreigners speak English. You can ask how come a rural farmer from Bihar speaks English in Gandhi, or for that matter Captain Russel speaks Hindi in Lagaan!
I’ve given only two examples.
Stop nit picking and enjoy the film.
Ajay, lemme answer ur question, in recent times Hollywood movies are extensively using regional language.
Letters from Iwo Jima(Clint Eastwood)-Japanese
Passion of the Christ(Mel Gibson)- Aramic, Hebrew
Apocalypto( Mel Gibson)- Mayan
Why when Danny Boyle, shot Trainspotting, he took extra pains to ensure that the actors got the Scottish accent perfectly right. So why this carelessnes for a movie set in India? And that for a movie claiming to depict Indian reality?
Once upon a time, Hollywood made every movie in English, whether it was set in France, Germany or China. But those good ole days are gone by.
@Ajay
Ok. I admit that usage of English for movies based in foreign lands has been used in the past. And its usage is vital to reach out to a wider audience. Maanta hoon. But somehow when the main characters in Slumdog speak English, it didn’t seem authentic to me; it didn’t connect with me. Maybe a little effort on the Indian accent could’ve done it. When Captain Russell speaks Hindi, it seems authentic. Aisa lagta hai ke ek firangi Hindi mein baat kar raha hai (Paul Blackthorne khud bhi toh firangi hai). Woh Hindi bolte waqt kuchh galtiyaan bhi karta hai. But the characters in Slumdog speak near-perfect English in an accent that doesn’t connect to me as a viewer.
This might be nit-picky, but for me, it just came in the way of enjoying the film.
i agree with Ajay and Prateek but since the knowledge of English language is considered a blessing in our country, its a tough one to swallow that an urchin from a slum is using it so freely and in an typical angreji accent!! but Danny Boyle gives a damn as to what we(indians) think about that,because besides us nobody else in the world would give a s@#$t as to how can they speak english like that!!and i hate him for that!!aur ratnakar bhai saab, aap kya bol rahe ho “meri samajh mein nahi aaya”-a little more elaboration please!!
@Ratnakar,
A film like Marie Antoinette had dialogues in chaste english. Gladiator, yes, that Best picture winner, They never spoke Roman in that film!
Babel, apocalypto and Letter from Iwo Jima are exceptions and not the rule. Mainstream american audience still hates subtitled movies thats why distributors are reluctant to back such films for a commercial release.
The murky world of Golden globe
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/11/opinion/oe-waxman11
Even Oskar Schindler spoke english in Schindler’s List. Sometimes it becomes hard to notice because of the quiality of the film. May be the native Germans felt the same watching Schindler’s List what we are feeling now for Slumdog. This is unavoidable. All these films are made for the english speaking people. Only a handful of them become universally acceptable for there better quality. IMO Letters from Iwo Jima was an excellent example how a foreign language film should be made. But again, I dont know what the Japanese think about that!
“Mainstream american audience still hates subtitled movies thats why distributors are reluctant to back such films for a commercial release.”
It is true ,no doubt about that !!!
GK
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Boyle has really done a good job with this movie. While the movie deals with the gory details of the underbelly of Mumbai, it doesnt really leave you with a sick feeling. The story feels like a commentary and at the end you just feel good about the whole movie. Very well done I must say.
The music score by Rehman is amazing, the actors who played junior Jamal and Salim were the real stars. They were simply too good.
I thought Freida Pinto was overhyped. I think she had just 15 mins of screen presence in the whole movie.
I am always looking for Indian (maybe more so Bollywood) movies to recommend to my American friends. It irked me that they always laughed at Bollywood…we go for Indian buffet lunches together and there is always B4U music videos with sexy Bipasha and Katrina gyrating their hips on exotic beaches with 100 other wear-me-nothins…and they always say “Indian TV and movies are nothing like real India…complete opposite infact”.
I first tried recommending them movies I liked like Munnabhai and TZP but they didn’t like it much (for many reasons like getting lost when Aamir starts singing in classroom etc. or getting preachy) then I experimented with showing them more reality like Satya, Company, Sarkar and they seemed to enjoy that. I recommended them Slumdog and they LOVED it.
Guys this movie is universally loved here by the westerners. Only bad reviews coming from Indians. But thats OK, must be that we understand India better.
I would suggest see it as a fairy tale, work of fiction, set in a faraway land with major class issues and you’ll find the story endearing, the script intelligent (I like where Jamal says “How much is the pani puri at chowpatty”? haha) It’s like that you know things from the context of your life. That’s why from the context of a western life, Slumdog is a fantastic thrill ride!
I also had the language / accent bit problem. click on my name link, which shall take you to my blog where I have rambled about slumdog millionaire.