"Slumdog Millionaire" scooped up eight Oscars on Sunday, the most of any movie this year, including best motion picture, best cinematography, sound mixing, film editing, original score for composer A.R. Rahman and best song, "Jai Ho" for Rahman and lyricist Gulzar.Among the "Slumdog" honors, Briton Danny Boyle was named best director for the often dark but ultimately hopeful, a Dickensian-style tale set in an Indian city. Similar to the way Charles Dickens used Victorian London, Danny Boyle wanted to portray the dark side of Indian city , where a slum dweller poor boy Jamal Malik (Patel), an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai who competes on a TV game show : "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika (Pinto), the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show¹s questions. Each chapter of Jamal¹s increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show¹s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out.
The film has raised a controversy over the country whether the western world is only interested in tales of poverty or at the most snake charmers and Kings and Queens .Some has raised the question that when India has 5600 newspapers... magazines in over twenty-one different Ianguages., with a combined readership of over 120 million ,when the country has reached the moon and back and when the third largest pool in the word of doctors, engineers and scientists are from India ,and also our country has the third largest army in the world ; how it is justified to glamourise those people who just to earn money, make movies which portray India as slum and poor Indians as Slum Dogs!! (See : http://furobike.blogspot.com/2009/02/indians-aint-slum-dogs.html )
But I differ from that blogger .My first point is ,with all the success we have achieved , is n’t it true that we couldn’t check widespread use of child labour and still the millions of abandoned street children who live on its railway platforms, or amputees and mangled polio victims who beg for small change at road junctions ? Why don’t we solemnly try to eradicate this social disease?
My second point is , it is a total misconception in our mind that only India or South Asian countries have the slums .Readers can access the description and conditions of slum in France, United Kingdom and USA from the following links :
http://www.nysun.com/comments/358
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/05SY8xx4zl5vR/610x.jpg
There is again a misconception about the slums , which I think media is responsible to create such fallacies. I have seen refrigerators,televison sets,modern domestic accessories ,two wheelers and even if four wheelers are also the common assets of the houses of Dharavi slums of Mumbai and Makarapura of Vadodara . The average city based Indian slum dwellers family can earn approximately 15,000 INR , which I think is sufficient for a standard living in India . What they lack are the education, cleanliness, pure water facility and good roads .We have to accept the challenges It is more required to make them educate rather than to provide any financial help .The government officials are more responsible in creating such slum areas .If city maintenance department of the municipal corporations have a strong will, we can make them proper habitation before they start to create any new slum area.
In last few years, the Indian films like “Lagan” and “Tare Zameen Pe” were also listed in the failure group for Oscar. so, it is also an unavoidable question that what made Oscar to see more in Danny Boyle rather than these movie makers?
The film has raised a controversy over the country whether the western world is only interested in tales of poverty or at the most snake charmers and Kings and Queens .Some has raised the question that when India has 5600 newspapers... magazines in over twenty-one different Ianguages., with a combined readership of over 120 million ,when the country has reached the moon and back and when the third largest pool in the word of doctors, engineers and scientists are from India ,and also our country has the third largest army in the world ; how it is justified to glamourise those people who just to earn money, make movies which portray India as slum and poor Indians as Slum Dogs!! (See : http://furobike.blogspot.com/2009/02/indians-aint-slum-dogs.html )
But I differ from that blogger .My first point is ,with all the success we have achieved , is n’t it true that we couldn’t check widespread use of child labour and still the millions of abandoned street children who live on its railway platforms, or amputees and mangled polio victims who beg for small change at road junctions ? Why don’t we solemnly try to eradicate this social disease?
My second point is , it is a total misconception in our mind that only India or South Asian countries have the slums .Readers can access the description and conditions of slum in France, United Kingdom and USA from the following links :
http://www.nysun.com/comments/358
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/05SY8xx4zl5vR/610x.jpg
There is again a misconception about the slums , which I think media is responsible to create such fallacies. I have seen refrigerators,televison sets,modern domestic accessories ,two wheelers and even if four wheelers are also the common assets of the houses of Dharavi slums of Mumbai and Makarapura of Vadodara . The average city based Indian slum dwellers family can earn approximately 15,000 INR , which I think is sufficient for a standard living in India . What they lack are the education, cleanliness, pure water facility and good roads .We have to accept the challenges It is more required to make them educate rather than to provide any financial help .The government officials are more responsible in creating such slum areas .If city maintenance department of the municipal corporations have a strong will, we can make them proper habitation before they start to create any new slum area.
In last few years, the Indian films like “Lagan” and “Tare Zameen Pe” were also listed in the failure group for Oscar. so, it is also an unavoidable question that what made Oscar to see more in Danny Boyle rather than these movie makers?
14 comments:
The comments made about the Slumdog by Ms. Sarojini, I feel, are quite logical. We have to decide whether it is to be proud of or ashamed of, that Indian indignity is sold and at the cost of our national pride. Some individuals are gaining prize and reputation. Such was the latest cause for the Booker prize too- and some big media gets pride on it, for they too wish India to be focused as such. Slums are the creations of the politicians, surely most of the families possess mobile phones and bikes, even fridges, etc. depending - it is a way of living rather than poverty in all the cases. These are the grounds on which politicians sow and reap the fruits of their activity. Slums are the shame of the country. We have enough to eradicate poverty and slum both, as a nation.
Best wishes,
Aju Mukhopadhyay
Sice you quoted my blog, i will give you the exact reason for my post.
I dont live in India, so i get to hear a lot many perceptions about India from people of other countries. I was discussing about the movie with a french gentleman. I said Thats a one off story, India isnt full of all the slums and slumdogs millionaire. He made a confused face and said Isnt what slumdog showed a reality, isnt India full of slums!
That broke the camels back, i had to shout at him n xplain him for 15 mins tht India isnt a slum and u shouldnt go to see poor india, hungry india.
Slumdog Millionaire is another such movie which potrays India as slum and i didnt like it
The paragraph about Lagan occured to me also. However, it need not be reminded to America that India is no longer a country of snakecharmers and slums. Indian doctors cure them in America, Indian engineer build, manufacture and design for them. There appears to be a political angle also involving stealthily behind this showering of oscars.
I read your commnent and also others.
Did you try to teach slum people?, i think no, but Itried to teach them, and they are not interested, I have tried many things like teaching to servants and other people, but thay do not want to learn, regrading clealiness, why dont people like us teach them. in Kerala, a very poor person also keeps his house clean, but not in mumbai or Delhi, why?
I am agree with Abhishek's remark. No Indian will be proud on his or her weekness.
we stil judge our selfe accoring to white skinned mind. we all know that Jay Ho is not Rahman's best song. but we are happy .... I would be proud, if LAGAN could win, but we INdians, are habitual of getting shits from others, ( opps -sorry) this is slum dogs language
In cinematic history of India, till date, we are not got to rid of controversy whenever we are at the gateway of Oscar with a few little big from our production house.
Slumdog Millionaire is a typical Indianaized theme, an illusive content with a heart and an artful making for the global market. That’s all.
Now let the global money stream into Indian filmy bazaar.
Let us hope for some better films having real scripts that won’t be purposely illusive. That won’t cater only dirt and filth.
In those films Rahman will be doing much better. As he always does.
Pokutty has jut said of history being handed over to us, not yet recreated, reformed and restored.
Let us do that.
You ask very thoughtful questions, Sarojini...
It's made me think about the success of the movie, and how there are misconceptions between film and real life. My Aunt Kathy doesn't like Michael Moore. Why? She didn't like it that he protrayed Flint Michigan as a slum in his documentaries. (She lives in Port Huron, Michigan) And it's true-Flint isn't a slum. There's still lovely houses there, a new theater for plays, and the Flint Insitute of Arts, a musueum that has works by Renoir, Mary Cassatt, Andrew Wyeth, and John Singer Sargent. I'm not trying to knock Michael Moore, yet I see my aunt's point.
I haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire yet but am planning on it this weekend. However I am glad it won Best Picture because originally the movie was supposed to be released by Warner Independent Pictures, but they were shut down. It looked like it was going to be released on DVD rather than getting a wide release, then Fox Searchlight picked it up. The fact it was released to theaters-much less win so many Oscars-is a miracle.
The Oscars are not an exact science when it comes to movies. My favorite movie from five years ago was In America-which showed New York at its best and worst-not even nominated for Best Picture. I adored Dreamgirls, not nominated for Best Picture. I haven't see the pictures you mention, so I don't know why they weren't nominated, yet Danny Boyle was and won. Money has a lot to do with it, and it definitely helped Boyle was well known with Trainspotting and 28 Days Later.
It is definitely something to think about.
I agree with Jennifer about In America, one of my all time favourite movies. Interesting to note that in today's Irish Times there is an article about Slumdog. Titled, Mixed Emotions about ''Slumdog' in Dharavi slum -it goes on to state that - quote, despite posing confidently on the stage at the Academy Awards, Azharuddin still lives in a lean-to made of plastic tarpaulins and moth-eaten mouldy blankets. Co-star Rubina shares a tin-roofed shack with her parents and her six brothers and sisters. Stray dogs feed on mountains of trash piled high across the slum.........I for one remain confused and bewildered by the glitz and then theres the raw reality that exists out there beyond the cameras?Am I the only one?
Hello Sarojini
I thought the film was another silly portion of Hollywood slop about boy gets girl and gets one million dollars. We eat it up while millions starve in every country of the world. Oh, we cry for the poor children. And do very little to change it. Everywhere.
Making films and telling truth are two different things.I can not deny slum's reality shown in this film, but at the same time this is also a reality that my apartment's sweeper is having L-7 Motorola Video Phone and she doesn't like old cloths we gave her, she enjoyed more leaves then me.My milk man comes daily on Honda cbz bike he owned. Road sweeper in my area is being dropped by her husband on scooter.My compounder gets his haircut at the same saloon where i do, and mind well i am not living in a very rich area.You can notice basic prosperity in every corner of India.One can remain poor in India or at anywhere in this world, if he or she desperately want to be one.There are no substitutes for hard work and understanding reality.There are very shortage of household worker in India.Everybody wants job of table and desk, that is a problem.Poverty of India is due to over population and currupt politicians. Our union rail minister is uneducated and having eight children, has a dream of being a prime minister at least for ones in his life and no wonder he will be one in some bad time of India. When i was eighteen, by seeing Hollywood films i thought that half of the time in a day westeners used to sleep in bad with their partner, but later on i realized that it is not so.Film or a story is one man's perspective and not absolute reality. I Don't know a single person in India who became millioner from slums without doing a hard work. So this story is a fool's paradise.Every Indian slum boy is thinking that some day he will be millionaire by miracle. This is not fair but who can stop media and marketing MUGHALS?
I do agree with Sarojini Sahoo cent percent. There is no sense in criticizing the film. As Shelley says, our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts. What else shall a novelist, poet or film producer aim at than focussing on the vast mojorities' lives and problems? The real India lives in thousands of villages that are poverty-stricken and the slums where poor workers struggle for their existance.
K. V. Dominic
In my view, the movie - slumdog - is a shockingly bad production- the acting is very mediocre- the characters are wooden- the relationship between JAMAL and the girl he pursues is like a comic piece- there is no depth in their relationship- there is no warrant for the infatuation he develops for her after many years- the movie trades on cheap thrilling sensation - the script does not rise above an abstract, unstimulating and slow paced account of the life of the poor- the movie appears to be a plagiarised remake of Waterboy, minus the suburban lifestyle- the story line is very predictable tending to put one to sleep- in honesty, it is not movie that one would want to really see, or watch again- the moves are very repetitive-the only redeeming quality of the female main actress is a winsome physical prettiness, without any notable characteristic of personality, conversation, wit, humour or depth- the movie exploits the general condenscending sympathy - perhaps a throw back of social guilt, by the commercially privileged sector of the movie industry that has always tended to favour the few filthy rich connections in the movie industry-it is now a feeble and hypocritical effort to hark back to a kind of social conscience- let us make it seem we are caring for the poor- give them awards and blind them, that riches can be attained by any person-without much ado about reviewing the structural premises of our capitalistic cum liberal global society- somehow one gets the impression that there is a contrived signal being emitted, but for the western involvement in the making of the movie, the movie directors from the other parts of developing countries cannot on their own achieve the awards-they are not as talented- this is utter nonsense- when one thinks of any number of, for example Mani Ratnam movies, and movies by countless very talented Indian movie directors that that should long ago have achieved any number of awards at all levels- the scripting in the movie is as limited and unstimulating- the dialogue is devoid of vivacity, insight, or depth- is utterly pedestrian- what all the fuss!
Oscar Awards - Awards for Pals and for mediocrity.
In my view, the movie - Slumdog - is a shockingly bad production- the acting is very mediocre- the characters are wooden- the relationship between JAMAL and the girl he pursues is like a comic piece- there is no depth in their relationship- there is no sequential build up- no subtlety- a cheap sensational movie- playing mindless moves-characters taht are simply where they are and who move when pushed- or when things happen to them - no higher vision or deep insights- there is no warrant for the infatuation he develops for her after many years- the movie trades on cheap thrilling sensation - the script does not rise above an abstract, unstimulating and slow paced account of the life of the poor- the movie appears to be a plagiarised remake of Waterboy, minus the suburban lifestyle- the story line is very predictable tending to put one to sleep- in honesty, it is not movie that one would want to really see, or watch again- the moves are very repetitive-the only redeeming quality of the female main actress is a winsome physical prettiness, without any notable characteristic of personality, conversation, wit, humour or depth- the movie exploits the general condenscending sympathy - perhaps a throw back of social guilt, by the commercially privileged sector of the movie industry that has always tended to favour the few filthy rich connections in the movie industry-it is now a feeble and hypocritical effort to hark back to a kind of social conscience- let us make it seem we are caring for the poor- give them awards and blind them, that riches can be attained by any person-without much ado about reviewing the structural premises of our capitalistic cum liberal global society- somehow one gets the impression that there is a contrived signal being emitted, but for the western involvement in the making of the movie, the movie directors from other parts of developing countries cannot on their own achieve the awards-they are not as talented- this is utter nonsense- when one thinks of any number of, for example Mani Ratnam movies, and movies by countless very talented Indian movie directors that that should long ago have achieved any number of awards at all levels- the scripting in the movie is as limited and unstimulating- the dialogue is devoid of vivacity, insight, or depth- is utterly pedestrian- what all the fuss!
It seems it is all about the right connections?
Who reads the Da Vinci Code, or even anymore watches the movie. Most say, they have thrown away the book after the first page; others snore in the early stages of the movie.
It seems so obvious at times, it is the private big money industry -well connected movie directors who understand the economic politics of media control and manipulation that sells and achieves awards.
Of course, there will be the obvious acclaim from the Indian cheerleaders- "our people-in script and in acting-what an achievement"- at what cost- sacrificing artistic and honest appraisal of real achievements, and them your soul- it is tragic that such medicore works as "Q and A" is made to eclipse such talented works as by R.K. Narayan and by Vikram Seth, that would been really true to the soul of the ordinary people even on the big screen- thereby depriving the international community of truly classic and timeless movies and works, that has the potential to change lives and elevate the human spirit.
JOHN GOVENDER
SOUTH AFRICA
PASSING SHOW
johnlegal@mweb.co.za
Slumdog millionnaire is a very good film. But i never understood why Oscar for this film. There sure have been even much better films than this made by Bollywood as well as Hollywood. Lobbying effect?
My comment (2): What is India has been a matter of perception for any one who cares to say a word or make a movie on India. One foreigner would say - India is the country of Birlas and Beggars (certainly a person with leftist propensity. Another would say - India! the country of Sadhus and snakes (certainly a person fed up with idol worship here). Why resent them? They focus on certain aspects of India which we must take humbly and introspect. Also there have been films like 'Ardh Satya' produced by Indians (Govind Nihalani), like Mandi (Shyam Benegal). The first focuses on police atrocities and the other on life in brothels. Both the films went to international festivals. Is it that we should show our ugly faces to outsiders but outsiders should not show our ugly faces to us? Come on friends.
Post a Comment