At last it has culminated with the ultimate triumph!
“Slumdog Millionaire”, which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards made a great run by sweeping away 8 Oscars, including that of the ‘Best Film’. Danny Boyle won the award for Best Director, Simon Beaufoy for Best Adapted Screenplay, Chris Dickens for film Editing, Anthony Dod Mantel for cinematography. Sound mixing award was shared with Rasool Pookutty, Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke.A R Rahman,the Indian musician won two awards- The Best Music Score Award and also for the Best Song shared with lyricist Gulzar.
For the past few months, there were also a lot of criticism and controversy going around this film on the view that the film depicted the lives of impoverished India, and also regarding the treatment of cast. It also faced criticism regarding the welfare aspects of its child actors. The director had to face accusations from some Indian media that his film was ‘poverty porn’. But according to Danny Boyle, it was an endeavor to capture Mumbai’s ‘Lust for life. The real controversy started with the comments in the blog of the legendary Indian actor Amitab Bachan. Following this; many more from the Indian film industry came forth with their critical views. Apart from the treatment of the film, issues also aroused that the compensation provided for the child actors were unfair.Another controversy was that the Co-Director of the film Mrs. Loveleen Tandan wasn’t included as co-nominee for the awards.This controversy even turned to the moods of Women Rights issue.
Leaving all these controversies apart and viewing it as a piece of art, the film is one of the riveting and the best portrayed films in recent times.”Slumdog Millionaire” which was actually filmed based on the novel of the Indian Author and diplomat Vikas Swarup named”Q&A”. The novel which delineated the exploitation and misery of orphans children, was exquisitely portrayed into the celluloid by the British Director- Danny Boyle.Even Vikas Swarup wouldn’t had expected such a beautiful and realistic illustration of his work.
The film beautifully renders major social aspects like Poverty, Orphan hood, riots, child harassment, under world, begging, brothel-houses, urbanization, cricket etc through a beautifully illustrated love story.
The story is of an 18 year old Jamal Malik’s journey from the slushy waste dump Slum in Mumbai to a hot seat of the Quiz Show -”Who wants to be a Millionaire” -The story moves with his progress in the show as he answers correctly. The reason how a primary school drop out Jamal Malik reaches the answers rightly, where even high qualified professionals failed to do, is the core of the film. Even the quiz master and the official law enforcement authorities turns suspicious on this. But,the answers were actually linked to incidents in the life of Jamal. The other protagonists in this film are Jamal’s brother Saleem and their childhood friend Lathika, for whom Jamal had a never ending adoration. The film conveys all the sufferings they had to face in their life with a realistic diction- the communal riots which made them orphans, the nightmarish world they had to spent with child beggars, the life in the streets and their striving for existence-even to an extend of killing for subsistence, the real picture of brothel houses, the rivalry, the separations, the longing despair etc.The film actually ends with the message that the ultimate triumph is only for true love and honesty.
Apart from Danny Boyle’s direction, the screen play of Simon Beaufoy, the editing of Chris Dickens, the cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantel and the music score of A.R Rahman were exemplary and can be attributed to the reason for this film to win such an applause. Another main highlight of the film is the lifelike performance of the actors, especially the child actors. The performance of Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Tanay Chheda and, Dev Patel as Jamal in various ages, and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala and Madhur Mittal as Salim in various ages, Rubina Ali, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar and Frieda Pinto as Lathika had contributed to a great extend in maintaining the realism of the film. The credit of their casting goes to the Co-director of the film Loveleen Tandan,especially for her finding of three kids who did the youngest part of the three central characters. In fact, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubina Ali were actually found from the slums of Mumbai.
After winning a series of awards- five Critics’ Choice Awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film-the big challenge for the film was to culminate with the ultimate triumph. And at last, Danny Boyle and his crew has successfully accomplished their task as it proved its true mettle on the D-day, sweeping away 8 Oscars.

The emperor’s new clothes! That’s “Slumdog Millionaire” for you… Five minutes into this celebrated patchwork of illogical clichés and you are struck by the jarring dialogues. The cumbersome delivery in a language which doesn’t come naturally to most of the actors sounds like someone scratching on walls with one’s finger nails; it ruins the possibility of a connection… Had this film been made by an Indian director, it would’ve been trashed as a rotting old hat, which literally stands out only because of its stench, but since the man making it happens to be from the West, we’re all left celebrating the emperor’s new clothes. The film borrows an undoubtedly interesting narrative style – from films like “City of God” – but then uses it to weave in a collection of clichés from the Third World’s underbelly for the viewing pleasure of a First World audience. The real slumdog in the movie is not the main protagonist but India as a whole… The makers and those celebrating this movie’s hard-to-spot brilliance are actually serving up India as the accidental millionaire, which in fact happens to be a slumdog… and like shameless fools we are gloating over its success without realising that it makes a caricature out of India.

The film does not have the sincerity and honesty of a “Salaam Bombay” or a “City of Joy” and nor does this slime covered fairy tale have the integrity or the rootedness of the above mentioned scripts, or even a “Shantaram” for that matter; the soundtrack and the performance of the child actors are the only bits in the film which live up to the hype. The real slumdogs who’ve hit the jackpot after wallowing in acres of human waste are the makers of this film who are now raking in millions while those court jesters who’ve critiqued the film and showered tributes and awards need to ask themselves why, scores of years after our independence, they still feel the need to suck up to the gora sahibs. It’s not a question of xenophobia… it’s definitely a well cinematographed film… but the film has no soul, especially after little Jamal has jumped off the train and become a teenager… The rest of the film is just a modern version of the West’s view of India where slums, slumdogs and Bollywoodian clichés have replaced the elephants and snake charmers. It’s a well made caricature of a country and a caricature can never be a Mona Lisa, for a masterpiece can’t be one dimensional juxtaposition of sadistic extremes… and that’s my grouse with the celebrations…

And I say all this not because I don’t know what is India. I know its poverty and the real statistics around it a little better than most others – especially the Indian film critics who have given “Slumdog…” an average of 4 to 4.5 stars! But the fact is that the film’s entire narration seems like the germination of a terribly sadistic and complex mind with the sole aim of satisfying the western idea of India – and its new found growth instincts at their cost – and it is done through a combination of illogical happenings in order to show everything in a disgustingly negative vein. Not that it doesn’t exist, but it surely doesn’t exist in this fictitious manner. While “Salaam Bombay” had realism, “Slumdog…” is just every scrap of dirt picked up from every corner and piled up together to try and hit back at the growing might of India. And the awards almost seem like a sadistic effort to show the world – look we knew that this was India, and these are the slumdogs we are outsourcing our jobs to. It stinks of racial arrogance and it’s such a shame now on second thought to see the Indian faces – including that of the undoubted master, AR Rahman – celebrating its success. There is nothing positive about the film and it seems that a deranged sadist has painted his insecure negative self in each and every character of the movie. It illogically shows every negative thing about India happening in the protagonist’s life… slums, open-air lavatories, riots, underworld, prostitution, brothels, child labour, begging, blinding and maiming of kids to make them into ‘better beggars’, petty peddlers, traffic jams, irresponsible call centre executives… everything apart from western pedophiles roaming around in Indian streets!! And its winning of so many awards and nominations only goes on to prove strongly that the paradigm of cinema and recognition of films are in the hands of a few retarded imperialistic minds. It’s a crying shame that our media hasn’t seen through this ruse and is touting “Slumdog’s” nominations to claim that India is shining at the Oscars, while in fact it is lauding a film that mocks and ridicules the idea of ‘India’, pigeonholing its identity into the straitjacket of depraved poverty for a global audience.

When the West wanted Indians to embrace them and their companies to come to India and capture the lucrative markets, suddenly we had all the Indian women, some very beautiful and some not necessarily so, winning all the Miss Universe and Miss Worlds. Today, they are in a crisis and India is looking unstoppable despite its slums and poverty, and they are losing their businesses to us. Isn’t it the best time to paint India as the Slumdog Millionaire?? All in all, the film is nothing but an endorsement of an erstwhile imperial mindset of the West and its blinkered vision of India. An English master has made an Indian slumdog. Don’t even waste your time watching this film in the theatres. It sucks and there is nothing great in it as a film too. Amitabh Bachchan was spot on when he said that Bollywood has made far better mainstream films. Take out a DVD of one of his old films instead…

The Oscars have been won – as expected! And it sure was a pleasure to hear Resul Pookutty speak about the power of silence and Om, and give Hollywood a chalk-talk lesson or two about Indian philosophy. It was also a great feeling to see the Indian living legend – A R Rahman – get something he more than deserved (though he has done far better work as well). The Indian film fraternity has some amazing green thumb talent; and some of them surely are at par with the world’s best. Thus, although only these two (Rahman and Resul) got the Oscar, I am sure there are many more deserving Indians out there who are no inferior. The only unfortunate thing is that the Oscars for them were awarded for a film that has been made clearly with one callow intention in mind – to draw up a caricature of every possible negative side that is there to India, for the sole viewing pleasure of western audiences – as I wrote in my editorial on the same issue a few weeks back (to read the same, log on to http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com/2009/01/dont-see-slumdog-millionaire-it-sucks.html). Having said most of all I wanted to say about the film the last time, this time there are two more aspects to the slumdog phenomenon I wish to highlight!

I really don’t want to take away from the happiness of the Indians who won the big awards; and surely they deserve all the accolades. And as I wrote earlier, it sure is a well made film with an interesting narrative style. However, I am quite shocked at the shameful euphoria created by the half educated Indian media that has unanimously termed the movie as an “Indian pride” and “the world taking note of India”. Neither could anything be further from the truth than this nor could anything stink more of a pathetic lack of intellect and understanding of reality. While a considerable number of people are saying that it (Slumdog Millionaire) is just a film and should be simply enjoyed as a creative process and left alone, the fact – as I wrote before – is that it also happens to be a film very evidently made to show ‘only’ everything that is possibly wrong with India (often, in a completely concocted manner) for the pure viewing pleasure of western audiences, because poverty-porn sells in the west. Yes, the movie has been marketed well… as the feel-good film of the year (for the western audiences most certainly)! To me, it surely is the most negative feel-good film I have seen! As a film, it works; but it really is then just a film… It has no commitment, for it delves on no issue and shows poverty in the most depoliticized manner. From the name of the film (Jhoparpatti Ke Kutte Bane Crorepati – if one were to translate the movie’s name into Hindi), to every scene in the film including Anil Kapoor’s completely unreal character, the movie has a clear dilettante attempt to show India in a deliberately abrogating manner. Leading NGOs working in Mumbai slums have vouched that they have never seen maiming of children for begging – in fact ask yourself, how many times have you ever seen a blind child beggar? All those who have read our cover story on the film (http://www.thesundayindian.com/08022009/default.asp) would know how at every stage, the flick has just played with reality to show India in a jaundiced light without any obvious commitment to showing the pains of poverty – apart from Danny Boyle’s surrogate post-film speeches of course! Far from it bringing any glory to India or Indians, Boyle’s caustic photoplay has only satisfied the western urge to look further down upon the ‘repugnant’ India, especially at a time when while they are reeling under depression, India is purposefully growing healthily. The evident western desperation to speciously paint India so vacuously couldn’t have been shallower. Globalization backfired on them and took away their jobs… So it obviously feels great to see this side to India and heartily award it as well!!

The west would have wanted to believe India still is a land of elephants and snake charmers; and therefore, were very uncomfortable thinking that perchance it no more seems to be so and was changing too fast for their comfort. Now they know India has changed indeed!!! It is no more the land of elephants and snake charmers… It is the land of shit-swimming slumdogs, who are turning millionaires… more by goddamned luck than by hard work. That’s their new view of India. That is the power of a well made and well marketed film and that is the new brand image of India that one film has been able to create. And that is why this film cannot be left alone by Indians as just a film. People have to realize its ramifications. Today, when you meet anyone who has seen the film abroad but has not been to India (well, most haven’t), amongst many other similar questions, you are faced with the question – do kids really swim in shitholes as shown in the film?

That, however, brings us to the second very important aspect. While what I wrote above is an undisputable fact, the fact also is that poverty and slums are the ugly reality of India. And yes, while the people living in slums are not dogs, this country unfortunately makes them live worse than the way western people could think of making their dogs live about five decades back! So India, this new image of India – of slumdog millionaires – was waiting to be created. It has been our own doing… or undoing. And as I sat watching this year’s budget in the midst of this new image of India, I was saddened that even this year nothing was done to try and remove these slums from India. What was most shocking is what happened the day after Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars. The next day, the big budget sops got announced – a whopping figure of Rs 30,000 crores for the Indian rich in the form of reduction of service taxes etc. it made me really sad to see that while the world has a new outlook for India, the fools in the Indian media failed to rub it into the minds of our people; and our politicians – visionless as ever – remained shamelessly uncommitted in the wake of this newfound status (read shameful status). A 300 square feet two-room flat with a dignified toilet and kitchen costs anything between Rs 65,000 to Rs 1,00,000 to construct in a basic manner. And given the fact that 25% out of the 30 crore people living in cities live in slums, India needs 1.5 crore such flats (assuming that, on an average, these 7.5 crore slum dwelling families have 5 members each) to become free of any slums and to give these people dignity of existence. This, in effect, means that all the government has to do is plan a Rs 1,50,000 crore budget for the same or Rs 30,000 crores per year for five years! Instead of giving away these meaningless and visionless sops, the government would have done well to declare that it would spend Rs 30,000 crores per year in the next five years to remove all slums from India so that there can no more be any new slumdog millionaires made on India. In fact, as an economist, I find the sops such a foolish act in the middle of this slowdown. At this time, we require jobs to be created, investments to be made; and these sops will do neither. A slum relocation programme would have meant investments to job creation to dignity to the people who we keep in slums like dogs.

Till the time we have a more committed, educated media and a political class, we will remain beach bum fools and fatuously gloat in our change of panhandler status… from that of the land of snake charmers and elephants to the land of shit-swimming slumdogs! Jai ho!!!