I just got back from a special screening of Slumdog Millionaire.
It's 10:32 pm PST out here in Southern California.
What did I think?
Let's see, if there was a checklist to make a "third-world" movie a Hollywood-sized hit (City of God, Born Into Brothels, etc.), this is how Slumdog would do:
Slums? Check.
Abject poverty? Check.
Poor street kids? Check.
Poor, cute, street kids? Check.
Living in filth and squalor? Check.
Getting by with their wits and small-time mischief? Check.
Outrunning the law? Check.
Violence? Check.
Communal (or is that religious?) violence? Check.
Violence against kids? Check.
Kids with guns? Check.
Predators? Check.
Beggars? Check.
Prostitution? Check.
Child near-prostitution? Check.
Poor children filled with the kind of saintly exuberance, naivete and hopefulness that the West objectifies to help it deflect the shattering reality of the situation? Check.
But yet, here I am, my synapses firing, my heart soaring, my legs twitching, my soul throbbing to the pulse of a truly visceral cinematic experience.
(Yeah, I know, cliched, but then again, it's not like I'm a professional critic or anything).
I heart Danny Boyle.
He is a master craftsman, and boy does he make this film run, dance, and sing. True, he has a lot to work with here, a huge canvas to paint on, we are talking about the mythical, exotic land known as India.
I have to admit that I was getting mad in the beginning. It was one thing after another after another after another after another after....well you get my drift. And when they added in some good old secular (or is it communal? religious?) violence into the mix, well I was ready to give up.
I'm so glad I didn't.
Because, you see, Danny boy has a way of keeping things going; this energy pulsating through a film, of a throbbing, propulsive, kinetic life-force (these are the cliches you'll see in the movie's marketing campaign) that eventually makes you drop your guard and give into the fairy tale.
Because that is ultimately what we have here, a fairy tale, an ultimately life-affirming fairy tale based in the sort of heightened reality that Bollywood has come to embody (as so expertly analyzed by The Better Half). Danny uses all the tricks in his sizable bag (including perhaps the greatest time lapse I have ever seen, when the boys are on the train and...well, you'll have to see), but really it's Simon Beaufoy's expert puzzle of a script that brings it all home in the end.
[The movie is based on Vikas Swarup's debut novel, Q&A. Yes, that's right, I said debut novel. Makes you crazy doesn't it? A British director goes to India, where he had never been before, never!, and adapts the debut novel of a part-time writer, (Swarup was a diplomat before the novel was published). Pretty crazy, huh? Makes you wish that you could, you know, do something like that...]
And yes, even though I could see it coming from a mile away, even though I knew what was about to happen in the end, my heart was in my throat and I got a wee...bit...choked...up...
What can I say? I tend to get sentimental in my old age.
Any "propulsive" movie "throbbing" with energy needs a pulsating soundtrack, a soundtrack with the "pulsing rhythm of life" (see how I did that...nice, no?) and everyone from A. R. Rahman to Shankar Ehsaan Loy, to even M.I.A. herself (wonder if she is going to become Irrfan Khan-like de rigeur for these Hollywood/Bollywood movies?) contribute mightily to this effort. I don't think there was ever a more appropriate place for "Paper Planes" (that great Pineapple Express trailer notwithstanding) than how it was used in this movie.
If the now-great (yes, I have dubbed him a "great" so I will use that little prefix every time I mention him in the future, and yes, great will be italicized) Anthony Dod Mantle is not nominated for Best Cinematography come Oscar time, then that will be a tragedy of Emmanuel Lubezki proportions!
The acting is good, with a stellar turn by the great Anil Kapoor (I hope this puts him in the Irrfan Khan category where, by law, every "Hollywood" movie made in India has to give him a part...). Thank god Shah Rukh Khan reportedly turned down the role.
Irrfan, as always, was good, with some nice work turned in by the likes of Raj Zutshi, Saurabh Shukla, and the very frightening Ankur Vikal.
Ironically, the hitherto unknown lead Dev Patel (discovered by Danny's daughter from the British show, and apparent cult hit, Skins) is somewhat of a weak link. It's not really his fault, the movie actually doesn't give him, as in the character at that age, much of a backstory, so ultimately it is a little hard to make the inevitable narrative leap with him.
Ditto the female lead, Freida Pinto, and male co-lead Madhur Mittal, who, to be fair, were both making their film debuts. Actually, come to think of it, this was the first film of all three of them so fine, I'll cut them some slack. So, okay they were all good, fine.
I hate to say, I really do, but the kids...man were they heart-breakingly good. They really were.
Why do I hate to say it? Because, it seems that they are all slum kids...for real.
Yeah, I know. Danny has promised that he has put them in good schools where he hopes they will stay. Once you give them a taste of this life, of the possibilities that are now open to them that they could not have previously dared to even dream about, it would be a tragedy, a real tragedy!, for them to go back to the way things were.
I sincerely hope that Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Rubina Ali, Farzana Ansari, and Chirag Parmar use this opportunity to make a better a life for themselves.
The other "kids" were great too, I haven't read through the production notes in more detail to know for sure if they were "slum" kids or just your average, run-of-the-mill Indian kids who just happen to be terrific young actors. They definitely rate a mention: Tanay Hemant Chheda, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar, and Siddesh Patil.
I will concede that it is very easy to be clear-eyed and objective here. I will grant you that the film does, in fact, fall prey to the exact things I often rail against: it exoticizes India; it amplifies the very worst Western stereotypes of India; it perpetuates the one-sided depiction of India that persists in Western media; it uses easy stereotypes; it is lazy in its shorthanding of the many complexities that bedevil urban Indian living; it provides a sanctified halo around the "noble" suffering it shows; it leans on the children to provide the easy emotional connection; it resorts to the oldest narrative tricks in the book; it...
It sweeps you away.
Because...
...it is 11:57 pm PST out here in Southern California...
...and an old man is twitching with energy...
...pulsating with this so-called rhythm of life...
...basking in the afterglow of that rare cinematic experience...
...where it was all right, for once, to believe in fairy tales.
What can I say?
I am getting sentimental in my old age.
LINKS
Rotten Tomatoes: Slumdog Millionaire (100%!)
Wikipedia: Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire Official Site
Wikipedia: Vikas Swarup
Wikipedia: Q&A
Amazon: Q&A
Wikipedia: Danny Boyle
IMDB: Danny Boyle
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