Jan 13, 2009 04:52 PM
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Throughout, the film reminded me of Amitabhs earlier films. Where he grows up an orphan in the big bad world known as Bombay, has an exceedingly tough childhood and then grows up to find love. His love, as it turns out, is his childhood sweetheart, the only one person he has connected with in his long lonely struggle through life. And oh yes theres the strong though amoral bhai. Those are the broad similarities. Otherwise, slumdog is a far more gritty, unrelenting tale of the underdog.
Vikas Swarup’s story depends primarily on the unfolding of events in flashback – to explain how a slumdog, a chaiwala could answer ALL the questions in a quiz show. And end up with 2 billion rupees. That’s 2 crores to you and me.
Living as I do in Mumbai, I have a more personal take on the film and its story. I’ve always wondered at how we deliberately look the other way when we come across the teeming mass of dehumanized people that accosts us everywhere in this city(the centre of the centre as someone puts it in the film - India is the centre of the world and Mumbai is India’s centre). To take a look at these lives, as if they were as important as that of those who are able to live with dignity, was a thing in itself. There is an unforgiving harshness yes, but beyond that they emerge as people much like those we know. That was the brilliance of this film for me – that when we see them, we flinch, but we are always interested to know what happens then? in a way we never are when we see them on the streets. Also the fact that these people have lives and an undeniable dignity that would make their gods incredulous.
All the actors who play Jamaal and especially Dev Patel who is in the hot seat, are excellent. The kid who plays the adolescent Jamaal will have both his films at the Oscars this year – tare zameen par and this one. Freida Pinto as the girl Jamaal has been waiting for quite literally his whole life, is very easy on the eyes and has an apt gentleness about her. Made on a budget of Rs seven crores, this one is a biggie in terms of everything else. Locations are brilliant. Performances are incredible. And the director has really made the film "fly" as a golden globe winner put it.
The movie pays its respects to Amitabh at the very beginning having been greatly inspired by all those amitabh films of yore. I did not find the characters so extraordinarily original as a non-Indian would, but otherwise, the whole format – the screenplay which has so deservedly won a golden globe – is amazing. The story idea is a stroke of genius. It brings so many things subtly into focus. Fate, destiny, inhuman struggles by mere children, and the utterly human thing called hope. The mad, unjustifiable hope of someone who should know better than to have such an outrageous expectation from life. For all its s**t-happens grimness, the film is a celebration of possibility. And the dance on vt station as the end credits roll, leaves you with this dramatic hope.
The film should have released much earlier here. Half the multiplex going janta has seen it already on dvd. But if you haven’t, good for you. Wait for its release on the 23rd this month. Jai ho!(And please tell me how to set this as my ringtone J)
