This is what Danny Boyle was thinking
A couple of weeks back I had a conversation with a friend currently stationed in one of the non-descript mid-west towns. After a few abuses and other pleasantries were exchanged, our discussion turned to Slumdog Millionaire. When I told him about my fondness for the film, the abuses turned into torrents. From the screenplay glitches to the human excreta to gratuitous show of poverty carefully targeted to a western audience – I heard them all. So, he asked me how I could have liked the film when I have, in the past, fought to dispel such notions about India. My only response was, possibly, there are two Slumdog Millionaire in circulation – one that I saw and the other, its misanthropic cousin that a lot of people seem to have watched.
After I hung up, I reflected a little bit on the life story of this friend of mine. A childhood spent in interior UP, strong quantitative aptitude and a remarkable ability for turn of phrase in Hindi which kept us in splits. He was also a noted Mastram scholar who would organize “paths” during the many hours of load-shedding that dotted our evenings at the engineering school. The first time he travelled to the States, he regaled us with his stories that wouldn’t have been out of place in ‘The Inscrutable American’. A lot of them had to do with his encounters with the western loo and the absence of running water in them. That was about a decade ago and I found it ironic that all he took from Slumdog Millionaire was the obvious and not the subtext.
I have been amused by the exponential rise in Slumdog detractors which has coincided with its remarkable run in the award circuit over the last month or so. The central argument binding the majority of these detractors is the tiresome ‘selling India and its poverty to the West’ line that I thought had long gone past its ‘sell by date’. The advocates of the film haven’t fared too well either countering these arguments with usual retorts of ‘celebration of India’. As I perused through the reviews of western critics, I realized that while the phrases – ‘triumph of human spirit’, ‘mad love for the movie’ and ‘breathless, exhilarating’ – do their best to accurately convey the western view of the film, they also seem to alienate a majority of Indian audience from the film. You can’t deny that you feel this western recognition of our squalor seems condescending. That’s obvious to many. But, as I wrote earlier in the context of my friend, I am surprised that many of us took the obvious from the film and not its subtext. I also think that the Indian reviewers seem to have followed their western counterparts in using similar phraseology in analyzing the film. That is missing the woods for the trees by a huge margin.
How difficult is to appreciate an allegorical tale? Is it too difficult to see beyond the story of an underdog who should have had no business knowing the answers to questions that highly educated people would find difficult to answer? Let me put it in a different way. What are the odds of a nation succeeding? Growing up in small town India (small town defined as population less than 10,000 and not the Bhandarkar version where Chandigarh qualifies), I heard a few constant laments about why we as a nation won’t succeed. Today, as I look back, it almost seems each one of those laments were actually blessings in disguise. So the scourge of population explosion of the 80s became the democratic dividend of 21st century which made us the nation with the youngest working population; the shame of elders about the next generation studying in colonial English language became our greatest advantage as we became the backoffice to the world; the bizarre focus on building elite educational institutes of higher education while continuing to have a high drop-out rates at primary education became the reason for India becoming a ‘soft’ power; the paradox of 16 official languages and 28 different states became the reason for the stability of a federal state and finally, how did India remain, possibly, the only country to have been steadfastly democratic among those that won their independence post WW2 despite the odds of illiteracy, religious diversity and poverty.
How did all these odds turn into advantages? How did India reach here in the 21st century as an economic superpower with a strong share of voice among the free world? It shouldn’t have been here, leave alone do well.
May be it was written.
Like my friend, there are millions of similar personal stories, including my own. As a child weaned on Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse stories, I read everyday about kippers, shepherd’s pie, Yorkshire pudding or clotted cream without any idea of what they were. Growing up, I never thought I would ever see them or an Englishman in my life as well. On my first trip to London as I sat down for a traditional English breakfast with a client, I shocked my host with my knowledge of the food on the table without ever having tasted them.
We are a nation teeming with similar stories of having reached somewhere we shouldn’t have been. Once there, though, we manage quite well.
Slumdog Millionaire is an allegory of India, of its people. You shouldn’t question, like so many have done, how all these unfortunate incidents could happen to the same boy from the slum. That’s the equivalent of asking how all those fantastic things could happen to Saleem Sinai in the Midnight’s Children. How did he lose his sense of smell and turned mute when India went through an Emergency?
We shouldn’t be so taken in by the minutiae that we fail to recognize the bold, brash strokes of masters.
Stare hard at yourself in that mirror; look around at the stories that walk past you; read the story of your nation.
You will realize that we are a nation of Slumdog Millionaires.
Tags: Danny Boyke, Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
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
When i was about to write a piece in defense of SDM and Danny , i read yours. Nice POV, completely agree. It is an allegory of india, and our reaction to the movie proves the film right. Subtext is not something we ever see in movies.
Brilliant!! Who else, but you Subrat?..absolutely brilliant!!!!
Thanks a lot subrat … I was starting to get irritated of trying to put across how uncomplicated the movie was….
I cant believe ppl creating conspiracy theories of western oppression.
Just take the movie for wat it is and enjoy it …
Superb.
Hard hitting stuff, Subrat. Yes, we are a nation of slumdog millionaires. While the movie has picked up characters who live in absolute poverty and thrusts a million into their hands, a lot of us have moved through stages of relative poverty, slowly but steadily climbing up the prize stakes.
When I saw the film on it’s opening weekend I was pretty sure that it would be a smash hit everywhere in the world but the audiences in India would have a shitfit. And that’s not due to the fact that the magic realist genre is almost unknown or that it’s narrative tour de force beyond the ken of audiences who lap up drivel day in and day out. The reason as you succintly put it is that’s a mirror and in the immortal words of Robert Burns “Oh would some power give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us” I don’t even remember when was the last time a contemporary blockbuster hindi film had a muslim protagonist even when the Khans are acting. In the Tamil film industry having a Brahmin character as a lead almost dooms a film to instant failure. I could go on and on about our hypocripsy which is legion. The detractors have a problem with a British director making a quintessential Bollywood film. The art of masala had almost been forgotten will Boyle and Beaufoy revived it. They had the balls to cast unknowns because they would suit the characters better. Yes the film is in English and Dev Patel has a British accent but is that the filmmaker’s fault that despite extensive searching a suitable actor with acting chops for the age range they wanted couldn’t be found in Bombay. English is much the national language of the country as Hindi is. All the IT bonanza we have reaped over the recent years is simply because we as a nation are well versed in the language. I personally think all the people who hide behind the east vs west argument are simply afraid to duke it out in a meritocracy which is essentially what the world is today. If we can celebrate Indira Nooyi becoming the CEO of Pepsico, color Silicon Valley brown and make Chicken Tikka Masala the national dish of Britain, WTF is anyone’s problem if Danny Boyle can teach us how to make a Bollywood film ? Does our insecurity run that deep that a simple quid pro quo has us screaming bloody murder ?
no one was more disappointed and cheated as i was upon seeing slumdog millionaire. i thought it was an utterly puerile attempt at bad, unidimensional filmmaking, with the worst stereotypes and such embarassing linearity that i find it hard to believe that the world is going so totally head over heels over a film of such startlingly tacky mediocrity that it almost makes me want to quit this insane business forever! hats off to the editor, however for stringing together the largest number of out of focus shots i have ever seen in a single movie, and giving this movie some basic energy, which, by running five and seven cameras at a time, should not be such a huge task. and please don’t anybody give me any bullshit about creative license, or else i will vomit on them with such commitment that i never knew i was capable of. am so let down by this viewing experience, and even more by the mass of people who think this brilliant filmmaking. and still more by the wave of artifice that i am drowning in. good luck. hemant chaturvedi
Excellent article…one which goes well beyond any arguments… given against SM in previous posts… bravo dude!!!
Funny how the filmic aspects have gone fully unnoticed. “Is this the same film the world saw?” my thoughts exactly, but on parameters of a film. Issue, relevance, subtext, doesn’t metter to me. As a very flm, it doesn’t have masala, masala means …oh well. Not this at least. It is a weak film, and please what was that climax. It is not fantasy, it is not allegory. It is a travel catalog. All the actors save few look uncomfortable, its a mad rush to the climax, no dull moments(and that’s a no no)No depth or soul in most scenes. Only good scene – the first question. Enough said. let’s get over this.
Oh finally…Profsaab is back! and m sure there is no other nation with so strong believe in the funda of “written” and that too by some 33 crore super powers and so it can only b “written” here.
Anyone who has been a part of a movie like Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham, does not have the moral right to speak about Slumdog Millionaire!
Subrat, are you my long lost twin? Amen.
@Hemant – Chatur, watching movies again? Out of focus, indeed,
I beg to disagree here Subrat.
However much I try to watch and catch the subtexts, the main package of SDM is meant for an audience that seems hard to accept the fact that India is atleast in the big city like Mumbai an ‘equal opportunity’ country where a Muslim can succeed equally well provided he is hard working enough. While you have been gracious enough to see a subtext of ‘a nation winning despite odds’ applied to the win of Jamaal, I beg to disagree and could not help deriving a different subtext that in a vilified and perverse city like mumbai where a TV show and its host laugh openly at the poverty and illiteracy of a participant, a muslim riot victim can remember answers only if he is unfortunate to lose his mother in a riot, watch his friend’s eyes gouged out by a Bhajan loving villain, see his own brother turn a monster on him by waving a ‘Samuel colt’ invention and a horde of other misfortunes that would have made the main character of ‘Les miserables’ feel like Obama and one final answer thanks to luck. I could have understood the subtext if the chaaiwallah taught himself the lessons of life and astered 12 languages and become a OCR room technician by pure observation and then amazed the nation with his intelligence. Usually hollywood ‘Triumph of human mind and spirit’ movies play out like that not in the ‘Usual suspects’ manner the esteemed ‘well meaning’ director has recreated here. In the same breath I should add that the movie is so much of an underwhelming experience for a normal cinegoer like me that it deserves not even a review and for analyses of the socio economic subtexts of Slumdog millionaire – well I guess peope are being too kind towards this movie.
“Slumdog Chaleesa”..is the same “made in USA” fascination for all Indian. we love to flaunt our US make equipments, clothes, electronics…this time we are praising a firangi film..just because we know..if we don’t read this “slumdog chaleesa” we will be tagged as “slumdogs” who dont understand “millionaire cinema” from west. I saw this film.. and i declare it a “piece of shit”.
“ghar tera saloni,
badal ki colony,
dikhlade thenga inn sabko jo udna na jaane….”
Prof. is back empowered with Jr.
Jai Ho!! Jai Ho!!
What a post!!!!!!!!!
@ subrat….
nice writeup….
just one question……whats ur opinion on the phrase “Slumdog” ?
Anurag: Thanks! will wait for the post
OM, Jahan and others who agree: There will be more
Navdeep: Kumbh 1996
VPJ: pls see my response (#46) to Dabba’s post
subrat, this is brilliant. well written bro.I cant imagine of a better response than this. !!! beatiful and keep em coming.
thank you subrat. the subtext however, is visible to only those who want to see it. i don’t know if danny or the production team had that in mind while making SDM.
.
can this please be the last post about this movie please? at least for a while? it is obvious that the two sides are not willing to deter from their positions. i’m afraid there’s going to be another wave of Slumdog posts after the oscars. god i’m tired. perhaps it’s written….sigh.
Yes Subrat, You and a lot others seem to have seen two different movies. You and actually a lot of people have seen a film made by Danny Boyle, a film having won international accolades and running for Oscars. Something has to be great about this movie You’ve seen. If seeing is not believing then there’s subtext and allegory. After all, philosophy is not to see what exists. It’s to see what every one failed to see. And then You’ve access to even Boyle’s thoughts.
Well, I found your post every bit as dishonest as the movie itself, and may I say, every bit as condescending under sugar coating.
I reiterate what Medha tried to say. Had it been made by an Indian director, You Subrat, wouldn’t have seen the allegory, wouldn’t have found any subtext.
You know why the Westerner angle? It’s not because anyone has a chip on the shoulder. It’s not because today was Republic day and we’re suddenly jingoistic.
The foreigner angle arrives because when we see the mediocrity of merit and masala of content and raciality of treatment and dishonesty of intent, when West laps it up this way and western reviewers and their un-original Indian counterparts raise this film to exalted status, in objective deconstruction, there’s nothing that stands to reason except for the fact that, despite the mediocre and hypocrite masala offering, it’s this Western appeasement and racial gratification that’s worked.
I’m sure, made by an Indian, in India, This movie would have never been credited the same critical largess. It’s an outsiders movie without intimate understanding of the subject dished out to outsiders.
If it was portraying itself as a masala entertainer, I’d not bother to spend a minute writing a comment against it. But when I see such mediocrity and hypocrisy gaining chain mediocrity and hypocrisy both in Popular media and perceived intellectual forums, I can’t help but not point out the bigotry.
Honesty is a basic trait. No amount of intellect can replace it. It either is, or it isn’t.
Great stuff here! Totally agree!! I guess we try too hard to look for logic, reason and sense in a creative medium like cinema.. In the process, we kill all the fun!
Subhasish: There are a lot many assumptions there on your part. The prime one being that I’ve watched and formed my opinion post the success at the awards circuit. However, since you have charged me with being dishonest any convincing on that front would be futile. You, and a few others, have also alluded to me imagining the subtext and kowtowing to an imagined superior race. I find movie reviewing in India follow primarily three patterns – the tongue-in-cheek school (that I take as well in my Prof series on PFC) or the ‘Dil Se’ style rants or the retelling of the story model. Literature review follows almost the same pattern. You could be right that such subtexts don’t exist and it’s all the invention of my servile mental setup which is set upon conferring greatness to Boyle (not sure if he needs it from me though). But then do we understand the exact motive a Conrad or a Joyce today? Or that of a Fellini and Goddard? Or do we interpret them based on a broader social or historical context? I am using these names as illustrations and not bracketing Boyle in the same league yet. One of the reasons I titled the post ‘This is what Danny Boyle was thinking’ was primarily because I wanted to give my interpretation of it.
Finally, if you look back at some of my posts on Adiga’s ‘White Tiger’ or Rajorshi Chakraborty’s ‘Derangements’, you’ll notice that I carry no historical burden of seeking approval from the white man.
@Subrat.
I guess we have a disconnect here. I dont mean that the audience is the management board of Cisco and IBM. It is the ticket buying public of the western hemisphere. They care two hoots if Mumbai is a hub of network tech professionals. There is an undeniable undercurrent of Indian offshore-o phobia among the general public – so much so that it made it to the economic agenda of the 08 election politics. In Britain, needless to say there is a sense of frustration at a failed demographic mix- a future of a continent filled with old men who have to now rely on ‘chaaiwallahs’ handling UK call center calls now for everything from product sales to financial package advice. This is the undercurrent that is portrayed in SDM – offcourse with some charitable and unattached nods to real ground problems in the slums of mumbai and their much abused residents.
There is another problem – packaging this movie as a semi bollywood movie and showing the story to be a intended/unintended spoof on Hindi films made in mumbai. I dont know if Anil Kapoor and co understood this leg pulling clearly enough. I am sure were it Ashutosh Gowariker he would have erupted like volcano like he did in the awards night against the meek Sajid Khan.
@ SUBRAT ji!!
Aap hi ho sir ji!! Bas aap hi ho!!
JAI HO!!
The argument that ‘if SDM was made by an Indian film maker it would not have received the same International attention’ is OK in itself. But the movie is one thing and the accolades it receives is another thing. One doesnt have to make an opinion regarding the movie based on that.
And ‘if an Indian director had made it’ will always remain an ‘if.’ Because I dont see any other movie around (may be except Salam Bombay)in which there is a story in the slums and at the same time is nonpreachy, wild and entertaining. Our fanfare until now has been that either you cringe in your seat or you fall asleep.
Subrat , extremely well written piece as usual
@jaiganesh. you are bang on, dude. i bet anil kapoor would have said no if the same role was offered to him by a hindi film director. I mean come on, his character was making fun of the participant. How ridiculous was that, or was there a subtext to it? I am sure enough people have found one by now. Bollywoodish? where, how? Unless they were making a mockery of hindi movies, hmm, maybe. everybody seems to suggest the movie was so much fun that the logical inconsistencies should be ignored. unfortunately. for me the fun ended when the ‘kids’ grew up to be teenagers. from there on it was tiring . just maybe, danny boyle wasn’t thinking.
I have been avoiding thinking about SDM posts and/or getting into discussions over the film but what the hell!!! excellent post! loved the way you interpret the movie. Makes sense…but from what i have read all the discussion is about how the film is being perceived by the west. Its a feel good film for them as well as for us(indians) but for different reasons.
my fellow PFCites…this is nothing new in Indian cinema…Nargis (the yesteryear actress) once made a similar outcry about….guess who…..Satyajit Ray…similar gaana that he is marketing India’s poverty n all!!
@all: i’m fed up with the conversations about this movie…come on…its neither as good nor as bad!!
Subrat, come on yaar. I can find a subtext in Singh Is Kinng. Question #1, is the subtext intended? Question #2, is the subtext deciphered by most people who liked the movie? The answer to both is a resounding ‘No’. So let’s put aside this high ground and see the movie for what it is.
Besides, even being enlightened by presence of the supposed subtext i.e. knowing that it is a story of every Indian, my viewing experience of the movie does not improve all that much.
SM is not deep. Heck, it is hardly careful. It’s an Indian dish prepared by a British chef, who has the recipe, knows the names of the masaalaas and loves the flavor and color of some of them. Alas, that’s not sufficient to make a delicious (let alone authentic) dish. His inexperience, ignorance, and compromises, turns the dish into a rather ordinary and avoidable one, even when the masaalaas make it “hot” enough.
No matter how one spins it (and I have heard and seen several spins already), it remains an ordinary and mediocre movie. Watch it, enjoy it (if you can), and forget it. Because if you start analyzing it, you will find so many small and big issues with it that it would be hard to take it seriously.
This is one bore of a movie. A bad film, plain and simple. The debate it is generating is totally misleading. Reading articles here one would assume some provocative piece of cinema has been made that has got everybody worked up. But this is a totally thanda movie. You may actually find yourself yawning in the mid-portions.
The only thing going for this soggy piece of cake is destiny. Within the film and without. It is sheer magic the way it has taken off in the world. Touching a chord somewhere in the recession-hit heart. I suspect more than anything else, this magic run has drawn the people. They want the film to succeed, against all odds. The film itself has become the ‘Slumdog’ and the Golden Globes/Oscars are nothing but KBC. People want it to win. Like true lovers, they are blind.
Gosh – all this talk totally reminds me of the buzz around Crash.
Another mediocre, cliche ridden, wildly stereotypical film praised to high heavens by the critics.
Kaching! I see and smell an Oscar for SDM.
And for those who constantly keep saying that an Indian director wouldn’t have made this film.
Well WTF was “Salim Lagde pe Mat Ro” then? What was “Woh Chhokri”?
What were films like “Do Bigha Zameen”? Or “Paar”, Or “Ankur”?
In your craven enthusiasm to fall over each other to hype up Danny Boyle, you have the nerve to insult the talents of Indian filmmakers.
Ugh – the Indian middle class and its craven wannabeness truly disgusts me.
@Dewi
rightly said…..the debate was about how the west perceives India ,no one doubted the aptitude of Indian directors ,but people have made this discussion a forum to insult Indian directors .
Any given day I would rank movies like Do Bigha Zameen and Ankur way higher than SDM, even Swades makes the upper cut for me compared to SDM coz it handled the issues of caste ,poverty with such elan.
One thing i dont understand is this brouaha about Indian movie makers not having the guts to make this kinda movie.
Excuse me, but what exactly was so pathbreaking about SDM, that only a White Britisher cud have made it. The plot is as old as the hills, the narration is straightforward, and neither does the movie contain one single scene, that reaches anywhere close to the opening rooster chasing sequence in City of God, or the chase in the slums with heavy rain pouring down in Satya. If this is the kinda stuff that only a Britisher cud come up with, then thanks but no thanks, i would rather have my Anurag Kashyap or Prakash Jha, who make movies that are far more realistic and hard hitting.
For me the issue was not with the stereotyping or showcasing Indian poverty. It is a plain overrated movie, and not really worth all that praise and adulation.
And the way Indian movie critics are falling all over to praise this movie, being so indulgent of its faults, makes me wonder whether they wud have been so tolerant if the movie maker were not Danny Boyle.
Hell next time i need an Oscar or GG, maybe i need to take up citizenship of UK or US, change my name to something Western sounding, and direct a movie that shows a love story between a tourist guide and a gori mem visitor, both of whom imagine that they are reincarnations of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal.
While so many Indians are talking about how this movie shows the stereotypical India with Slums adnd poverty, this following review actually makes a point that unlike usual Brit movies about India, this one shows the new Modern India! Read it…
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/film_reviews/article5475168.ece
Over rated, Over hyped piece.
Yes I also came from a small town.
And I am unable to understand the ’subtext’
“We are a nation teeming with similar stories of having reached somewhere we shouldn’t have been.”-Is desh ka kuchh nehi ho sakta!!
ppl are going gaga just bcos its a danny boyle movie, feeling that he can do now wrong and look for subtext where there isn’t one. damn!, why isn’t ATM yadav speaking about the weak screenplay, making fun of the non-existent story and crappy characterisation, why is ATM yadav not knit-picking the loopholes; for the simple reason tat the movie was made by danny boyle and not an indian director/producer. this post has taken a periscopic view and shown us the ‘danny boyle’ angle; i wud any day prefer the mira nair angle for the same story. some “intellectuals” and the critics are trying to fool ppl into believing tat the sandstorm is actually a hurricane
Many feel that the praise that the movie’s getting is over-rated..while i agree with that to a certain extent; the abuses that the movie’s getting is also over-rated..
it’s become more like ’see i loved the movie and it’s been nominated for the oscars!! ”
and the anti camp goes “What! a not bad movie gets into oscars..let me tear apart by using idiotic quotations like Poverty porn”
IMO if slumdog hadn’t won the Globes or hadn’t been nominated for oscars, it would have simply been a movie that everybody enjoyed, some more than the others..it definetely wouldn’t have started the cottage industry of The Great Slumdog Debate.
@Ratnakar Sadasyula
Lol..
incidently a movie with a similar storyline is being made by Kaizad Gustad called “Bombill & Beatrice”. It’s a love story between a Gori Mem and an Indian and also has reincarnation in it..only shah jahan and mumtaz is missing..
@ Sudhir,
You sound very close to the whole point. It’s a mediocre movie which definitely merits a viewing and You might just add that it’s masala with a little condescending. That’s all.
My whole problem is when the entire popular media and intellectual media tries to portray it as some great piece of art.
Where were these people when Anurag’s No Smoking was torn apart? I bet No Smoking would have been bigger than Matrix had it been made by a Hollywood studio with Coen brothers or somebody.
The whole world would have seen the subtext and the Da Vinci code like hidden messages.
The whole grouse is, we’ve entered the era where the maker’s name overrides content. That’s the whole debate. Nothing else.
Jai ho!
i disagree. A very cliche piece of opinion to the indian context of slumdogs. The whole post imposes a formal style of a vague indian speakers articulately spilling dog muck on the roadside jugglers. It’s a bland and blooodless piece
Actually I don’t exactly ‘agree’ in the sense that I couldn’t really take the film seriously enough to think so much of the ’subtext’- I did read it as an allegory of a new rising India, but it still remained a masala film for me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I think.
Having said that, I always love a well thought out and written post that puts across a POV interestingly and intelligently- and as far as that goes, you rarely disappoint me Subrat. Bring it on. ;)
@ratnakar, i agree with you,i saw the movie and felt it was an ordinary movie with some good acting (young Jamaal and saleem) and mayur mittal (elder saleem). Apart from that it was just a tricky attempt which atleast made Boyle millionaire
. when i read the novel “Q and A” sometime back i had thought in my mind that would some bollywood guy will make movie on this?
Although the songs are good but i strongly feel that ARR has composed much better and beautiful songs which should have been awarded.
The only Big Q in my mind is that will Mr Boyle will attempt for one more bollywood masala again???
@Janus…you nailed it…insecurity…what else do you expect from a country that has been plundered for 2000 years…no doubt the rich in india are the richest in the world…and still dont do anything back to society in a scale that a bill gates does…
@subrat…
well written. We are a nation of SDMs. We know more about the west ( atleast history, geography ) that many in the west itself know…now civics is a different topic though…
@38 “Hell next time i need an Oscar or GG, maybe i need to take up citizenship of UK or US, change my name to something Western sounding, and direct a movie that shows a love story between a tourist guide and a gori mem visitor, both of whom imagine that they are reincarnations of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal.”
You forget one crucial aspect my friend: make it in English (no matter how ridiculous it sounds).
I am simply appalled at the Museum of Squalor put on display by Mr. Boyle. He has felt not intimacy or love for India or her poverty and squalor, which he has brazenly put on sensationalist display. And yes, there were many moments that made me cringe – not unlike what a lot of bad Bollywood does for me.
Is this the same man who made “Trainspotting”? Did he not feel a deeper sense of connection with the heroin ridden protagonist of that film? Why did he pick India to put on display in this unbecoming fashion?
I’m sorry, but this isn’t about SUB-text, guys.. i’m talking about the very-evident TEXT that i find problematic and offensive.
I don’t deny the spirit of india, where a “chaiwala” can become a millionaire… hell! What of the T-series guy rags to riches story! Sure, that’s a celebration of what we are… but Mr. Boyle did not bother to feel a closeness or a sensitivity to what india is and what beats in the hearts of her billions. But for the cinematic treat of poverty, there isn’t a feeling of the realness of these characters.
I write about this because i am appalled at the thought of SDM being at the Oscars… because i think we lap it up because it’s being dished out to us from yonder fair land.
Having said all that… nice post, Subrat. It was nice to see things from your perspective. Admire the rhythm and lucidity of your writing. Just, I agree to disagree.
Lets us consider different aspect of filmmaking w.r.t slumdog
——–
Screenplay
———-
Even slumdog’s die hard lovers do not have anything to say … because there is nothing to say … it is tadka and masala … oscar for masala and tadka … why not? … Remember West used to do spice trade with india since long … rediscovery
——–
Direction
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Great danny great … you made me watch it without gap … and make me hate the story … man you are reincarnation of Shakespeare and slumdog is open film like “merchant of Venice” … where some say it is spoof … some say masala…. Some say jai ho … it is open to interpretation … man but young kid acted good …and old ones were poor … but danny … people say it is tough to make films with kids … with such a low budget (only15 million … ie just 75 crore) … the production of value is outstanding … I assume that’s why you choose digital format … so most of the money goes to production value … man what a choice … you had sense ki screenplay is very bad and same time had vision that production value will make a bad screenplay into world class film … and oscar … jai ho danny jai ho … btw danny our own kjo also not interested in making documentaries … and city of god was a kind fiction and not documentary… we called docudrama in India … kind realistic fiction … but what was SDM? … now I know it is not documentary (after you said so) … some say it is fairy tale … some say it hard hitting … realistic filum … danny baba ki jai ho
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Editing
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No pun …. 10/10 … one of the best –oscar –ofcourse
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Sound design
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10/10 … awards must at every type of film ceremony
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Music
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Great … but not rehman’s best … “choli ke piche” se to ROja or Bombay ke gane any day better hai … but he is ossum as always … oscar pakka hai sirji
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Marketing
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100/10 – (90 out of that 100) is hype
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Donation
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All slumdog lovers are requested to donate money for “Poor Indian Filmmakers Fund” So that …one day an Indian and a slumdog and a filmmaker can make 15 million$(low budget yar … just 75 khoka) British film and that too a bad one
What I don’t understand is people across the world or any country doesn’t bother when they show america’s and england in bad light..as for the case take trainspotting and it was all about drugs but people didn’t have a problem or the american gangster movies which shows the darker side people don’t think the way our so called our critics think!!God save our people show off patriotism!
@7th comment
is this the same hemant chaturvedi who ’shot’ company and maqbool?????