Slumdog Millionaire is over-rated as well as misinterpreted.
First of all it is a lovely movie with great drama. It has transcended the usual happy ending scenario movies. It has really delivered a great play altogether to show how a man can win against adversities in this cruel world(not so cruel). But in the end, in my view, as USA is all going ga-ga over it, it doesn't desrve that much also. The rating at imdb, I think, is over-rated. The main reason for being over-rated is I think the dire state of USA right now. Every movie which has been about hope and change has been over-rated. Take 'The Dark Knight' or 'Wall-E' for instance. Both are great movies, no doubt in that, but they certainly have been called more greater than those actually are. Both movies touched top ten in imdb at certain point. I won't give both movies that much rating that they can be in top 10.
Some people have loved this movie for showing a very great 'realistic' visual of Mumbai-slums, well first of all the movie has shown only negative aspects of a metro city of India. Though no lie has been made yet reality is not 'complete' in this movie and on top of that reality is stretched to too extreme. Even for showing slum-life who think this is the best movie, I will point out a movie called Salaam Bombay made in 1988. The genuineness Mira Nair could achieve in her movie, I don't think Danny Boyale could go at par with that even after 20 years.
Some people loved it for being a movie that has transcended love stories. This is what I found really weird. Because as far as this movie goes, it has nothing which can be comparable to Pretty Woman or Titanic in that category and there are classics like Casablanca. And these reference movies mentioned are just Hollywood movies, you can find a lot of Bollywood movies out of thousands of melodrama and love flicks for which Bollywood is most famous and I assure you thousands will be far better love-stories than this one.
Now a lot of people have criticised it for having shown a too much of a dark side of India. Well, as it is, the movie certainly has gone beyond boundary about India. But remember it's a fiction. Fiction almost always have come with an exaggeration of general world events that actually happen to be real. This movie is no different.
The laughter of Audience when Anil Kapoor(host of game-show) mocks our hero is not what happens in reality at Indian game-shows but it does not means that it is made to signify the negative aspect of India towards apathy towards poor. But the essence of movie in showing it such a way is that it is a sarcasm on reality shows where audience does what it is told on sign-boards. It is exaggeration on aspect of game-shows not mockery of poor.
Other a few events like jumping of boy into shit-load to get autograph of Amitabh, also has nothing to do with dark sides of India and such. This is Boyale's signature of taking comic scenes into extreme. If you don't believe me, watch Danny Boyle's 1996 masterpiece Trainspotting, in which Renton puts himself pathetically (yet artistically) into the worst toilet in Scotland for two pills of drugs.
The movie is a fiction but one entagled with truths and facade of reality unlike Bollywood movies which contain plethora of fantasy in scene, dialogue, songs and everything of movie. There is difference between three, you see, fiction, fantsay and reality.
First of all it is a lovely movie with great drama. It has transcended the usual happy ending scenario movies. It has really delivered a great play altogether to show how a man can win against adversities in this cruel world(not so cruel). But in the end, in my view, as USA is all going ga-ga over it, it doesn't desrve that much also. The rating at imdb, I think, is over-rated. The main reason for being over-rated is I think the dire state of USA right now. Every movie which has been about hope and change has been over-rated. Take 'The Dark Knight' or 'Wall-E' for instance. Both are great movies, no doubt in that, but they certainly have been called more greater than those actually are. Both movies touched top ten in imdb at certain point. I won't give both movies that much rating that they can be in top 10.
Some people have loved this movie for showing a very great 'realistic' visual of Mumbai-slums, well first of all the movie has shown only negative aspects of a metro city of India. Though no lie has been made yet reality is not 'complete' in this movie and on top of that reality is stretched to too extreme. Even for showing slum-life who think this is the best movie, I will point out a movie called Salaam Bombay made in 1988. The genuineness Mira Nair could achieve in her movie, I don't think Danny Boyale could go at par with that even after 20 years.
Some people loved it for being a movie that has transcended love stories. This is what I found really weird. Because as far as this movie goes, it has nothing which can be comparable to Pretty Woman or Titanic in that category and there are classics like Casablanca. And these reference movies mentioned are just Hollywood movies, you can find a lot of Bollywood movies out of thousands of melodrama and love flicks for which Bollywood is most famous and I assure you thousands will be far better love-stories than this one.
Now a lot of people have criticised it for having shown a too much of a dark side of India. Well, as it is, the movie certainly has gone beyond boundary about India. But remember it's a fiction. Fiction almost always have come with an exaggeration of general world events that actually happen to be real. This movie is no different.
The laughter of Audience when Anil Kapoor(host of game-show) mocks our hero is not what happens in reality at Indian game-shows but it does not means that it is made to signify the negative aspect of India towards apathy towards poor. But the essence of movie in showing it such a way is that it is a sarcasm on reality shows where audience does what it is told on sign-boards. It is exaggeration on aspect of game-shows not mockery of poor.
Other a few events like jumping of boy into shit-load to get autograph of Amitabh, also has nothing to do with dark sides of India and such. This is Boyale's signature of taking comic scenes into extreme. If you don't believe me, watch Danny Boyle's 1996 masterpiece Trainspotting, in which Renton puts himself pathetically (yet artistically) into the worst toilet in Scotland for two pills of drugs.
The movie is a fiction but one entagled with truths and facade of reality unlike Bollywood movies which contain plethora of fantasy in scene, dialogue, songs and everything of movie. There is difference between three, you see, fiction, fantsay and reality.
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3 comments:
10 January 2009 at 19:40
wtbf !
how can u compare slumdog to pretty woman..?!!
13 January 2009 at 16:36
I do agree with you on some points ... specially the end, it was too cliched.
and i'll definitely put "salaam bombay" above "slum dog millionaire"
18 January 2009 at 01:51
oh yeah.. i do accept to ur views.. i found some scenes, unrealistic, and unbearable.. i cannot imagine a slumdog behaving like a well educated and well dressed upper class guy. he looked like an NRI, and not a person frm slum..
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