So Slumdog Millionaire continues in its quest for Hollywood Hall of Fame status. With another win at the Directors Guild Awards, Slumdog Millionaire almost looks like a lock for the Best Film Oscar. It has steam rolled all competition this year and it will be honestly an upset of epic proportions if another film were to steal its thunder at the Oscar. An indie(don't read it as Indian) film hasn't won a Best Film Academy award in a long time but if any indie film is gonna do it-its gotta be Slumdog Millionaire. The hype is almost of the never seen before kind, the story of Jamal Malik, the movies main protagonist, almost resounding in the success of the film itself. For Slumdog Millionaire, just like Jamal Malik, was perhaps born to lose but destined to win. 3 months ago hardly anyone had even heard about the movie with the American media concentrating on Milk and The Curious of Benjamin Button as the more likely movies to walk away with Oscar gold this year. But, while the american media has got their awards favorite wrong quiet often, even the most accurate of them wouldn't have got this right. In came Slumdog and the awards season scene changed forever. While David Fincher and Gus Van Sant were probabaly writing down their Oscar speeches this year, they, even in their wildest dreams wouldn't have thought that a British film maker making a film on the slums of India with a budget of 15 milllion$ and an unknown cast would not only turn out to be their biggest threat but also in all likelihood, who would steaL it from them. For as I have said, it would be an upset of huge proportions if Danny Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire are not awarded on the night of 22nd February at the Kodak Theatres. This truly has been the year of the underdog in Hollywood-Robert Downey Junior's grand comeback with Iron Man when everyone thought he would never be a Hollywood star to Mickey Rourke's comeback from the darkness of his own abyss with the Wrestler in a truly epic performance to finally Slumdog Millionaire's quest for Hollywood immortality.
But while the west has been going gaga over Slumdog, our own media and stars have been quick to tarnish it and dismiss the movie for its gross dismissal of our beloved country. And oh-how I pity them! I am going to target a few individuals here so brace yourselves. If you don't know just how madly the west is in love with Slumdog Millionaire then just log onto IMDB and check the veiwers polls Oscar results. A resounding 60% voted Slumdog as the winner with The Curious case of Benjamin button coming a hugely distant second with 23%. See what I mean. They don't just like this movie. They have fallen in love with it. But India is another story.
Amitabh Bachchan, undoubtedly India's biggest super star, tore the movie apart for its hugely inaccurate representation of India. He called the experience of seeing his country on screen in slums as horrifying. Let me ask Mr Bachchan-what exactly would you see as an accurate representation of India on screen? When Sunny Deol knocks out a world champion in Apne-is that accurate representation of India and Indians? Or when all middle class families somehow seemed to be living in 3 bedroom flats in Hindi movies-is that an accurate representation? It's a movie Mr Bachchan-a fiction one at that and yet I will tell you thats not the only reason you are wrong. Mr Bachchan-I am no expert on what is the true India! But I am pretty sure that slums exist in Mumbai. That street children are blinded by Gansgters to use them as singers on trains and railway platforms. That girls are molested and raped(have you read about the Mangalore case Mr Bachchan?), that HindU Muslim riots exist in India and tear famlilies apart(Mr Bachchan-ever heard of the Godhra riots as recent as 2002?). You ask why the true India wasn't shown! But Mr Bachchan-the movie isn't about a bunch of hippie college students zooming on bikes, romancing their girlfriends and talking about being friends forever, if that's your version of the true India. It's a movie about a slum dweller so thats probabaly why Danny Boyle decided to skip showing Jamal Mallik sitting with Latika at Marine Drive or Bandstand, holding hands and indulging in sweet nothings. Perhaps if this movie was made 30 years ago, you would probabaly be starring in it and young Jamal would hunt down the Gangster who tried to blind you and kidnapped Latika. Jamal would then go on to kill him right in front of Latika to show how much he loves her. Then there would be a chase scene with the police on Jamal's tail, through the Mumbai city instead of the slums before young Jamal is taken up by a rival Gangster. Jamal soon grows into Amitabh Bachchan, who is now the right hand man of that rival ganster and mouths dialogues like-"Jamal Malik sirf ek baar bolta hai...uske baad uski banduk bolti hai!" Latika ofcorse is very happy to be a Gangsters wife though she does dread the moment when Jamal's crimes will finally catch up with him. Just for kicks-we will have Salim become a cop and replay that famous Deewaar scene where Salim will say "Mere paas Maa hai!" Oh I get the picture-30 years ago Slumdog Millionaire would have been Deewar. So you are just complaining that you weren't told that one of your movies was being remade. Ah well-even if in some weird way Slumdog Millionaire is a remake of Deewaar lets be honest and say that atleast Danny Boyle did a much better job than Ram Gopal Verma did when he remade Sholay as the now epic Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag. And atleast the villain wasn't named Babban! Oh-didn't that star you Mr Bachchan? I am so sorry!
See, I am not against people not liking Slumdog. I am against people who slam it for the completey wrong reasons. Yes, if you don't like it because you couldn't believe all these incidents happening to one man-it is acceptable. If you didn't like it because you find it unbelievable that all the questions Jamal is asked happens to be linearly arranged in his life, yes, that's a loophole in the plot and a very big one at that! If you found the part where Jamal and Salim grow up to be engish speaking teenagers and quiet fluently at that as unrealistic-then you are definitely not in the wrong! But to slam it simply because you think it depicts and worse demeans, India in a wrong way-sorry guys...but you need to wake up and smell the coffee! First wake up to the fact that this is a movie and a director has the right to take cinematic liberties. If Ashutosh Gowariker can fictionalize the story of Akbar and win awards for it, if he can show all english men as mean and evil as he did in Lagaan and go to the oscars-then what exactly are you complaining about here? And if you really want to look at demeaning something then why don't you watch Fashion? Madhur Bhandarkar's supposed true expose on the fashion world has its protagonist falling from the pedestals of a principled life into the world of pre-marital sex, drugs, booze and manipulation. But what does it take for her to finally realize that she has reached the ebbs of her own principles? It takes her to sleep with a black guy. She wakes up one night, naked with a Black guy and she suddenly realizes how horribly wrong she has gone. If this doesn't smack of racism-then what does? And we accuse some one else of demeaning our country. Look in the mirror dear Indians, look in the mirror!
It's one thing to criticize a movie, it's another to start a smear campaign against it. Mr Bachchan and Priyadarshan have done exactly that. Many have said that we can make a movie as good if not better than Slumdog Millionaire. I have just one thing to tell them-please do. You call Slumdog Millionaire just another masala potboiler which would have been panned if it had been made for an Indian audience. Respected fraternity of Bollywood-we never said we don't like masala potboilers. We just don't like bad movies, that's all. And Slumdog Millionaire is anything but a bad movie. I would have loved it more than anyone else in the world if an Indian film director-A Mani Ratnam or Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra had made Slumdog Millionaire and would be up for the best director oscar instead of Danny Boyle. But unfortunately-that's not the case. It's Danny Boyle and though I refuse to call Slumdog an Indian movie, it is in the end an Indian story if not an Indian movie and I can take pride in that. It's a movie whose protagonist maybe Jamal Malil but its star is the city that I love the most in the world-Mumbai. And Mumbai maybe about tall skyscrapers, traffic blocks, multiplexes and malls, with its jeans clad boys and mini skirt wearing girls sipping coffee in CCD or having a drink and dancing away to glory at Cosmos but it is also just as much about those shirtless people living in the small temporary huts by the roadside, taking a crap at the railway station and not aware that there is something even called a multiplex or a mall. It's a world that exists how much ever Mr Bachchan or Priyadarshan or any of us may seem to deny it. And if Farhan Akhtar can show Mumbai as the city of the urban youth with absolutely no hint of the slum world in Dil Chahta Hai, then can't Danny Boyle show the slum world? Then ofcorse we would be quick to come to Farhan Akhtar's defense and say that DCH was a movie about the urban youth. Just like that sweethearts-Slumdog is a movie about the slums. Accept it and move on!!
As for me-I truly, honestly and from the bottom of my heart loved Slumdog Millionaire. I was moved by this story of a slum dweller and his quest to be with the girl he loves. Maybe it was unrealistic, maybe there were too many co-incidences, maybe it was manilpuative, maybe slum dwellers don't speak english at all, leave alone so fluently-but when Jamal finally meets Latika at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus on that fateful evening, I couldn't help but cry! Tears rolled down my cheeks as Jamal felt the scar on Latika's face! The two of them had suffered so much, had seen so much pain that to finally seen them unite, to finally see their love being fulfilled, it almost felt as if this was my story. My triumph! It wasn't the fact that Jamal Malik wins a million rupees at the end that gave me goosebumps, it was the fact that he finally got the girl he loved that did! It wasn't his destiny to win a million rupees, it was his destiny to be with Latika. And it takes absolutely brilliant direction and a rivetting screenplay to achieve that.
Jamal asks Latika in the final scene what they are going to survive on. She, in perhaps a cliched way, replies "Love." The dialogue maybe horribly cilched but was wonderfully effective. And slumdog sweetheart-thats what you are going to survive on. On the love showered to you by the hundreds of millions of people all over the world. It's the kind of love that Bollywod filmmakers can only dream of. And no wonder Mr Bachchan and a few others are jealous. Their movies never got the kind of love that you have despite being the biggest superstar of the country. And it's jealousy that making them say all these nasty things. Forgive them!
Just like Jamal Malik, Slumdog Millionaire was born to lose but is destined to win!! All those who didn't like the movie because it demeans India can take a hike. Bring on the oscars. JAI HO!!
But while the west has been going gaga over Slumdog, our own media and stars have been quick to tarnish it and dismiss the movie for its gross dismissal of our beloved country. And oh-how I pity them! I am going to target a few individuals here so brace yourselves. If you don't know just how madly the west is in love with Slumdog Millionaire then just log onto IMDB and check the veiwers polls Oscar results. A resounding 60% voted Slumdog as the winner with The Curious case of Benjamin button coming a hugely distant second with 23%. See what I mean. They don't just like this movie. They have fallen in love with it. But India is another story.
Amitabh Bachchan, undoubtedly India's biggest super star, tore the movie apart for its hugely inaccurate representation of India. He called the experience of seeing his country on screen in slums as horrifying. Let me ask Mr Bachchan-what exactly would you see as an accurate representation of India on screen? When Sunny Deol knocks out a world champion in Apne-is that accurate representation of India and Indians? Or when all middle class families somehow seemed to be living in 3 bedroom flats in Hindi movies-is that an accurate representation? It's a movie Mr Bachchan-a fiction one at that and yet I will tell you thats not the only reason you are wrong. Mr Bachchan-I am no expert on what is the true India! But I am pretty sure that slums exist in Mumbai. That street children are blinded by Gansgters to use them as singers on trains and railway platforms. That girls are molested and raped(have you read about the Mangalore case Mr Bachchan?), that HindU Muslim riots exist in India and tear famlilies apart(Mr Bachchan-ever heard of the Godhra riots as recent as 2002?). You ask why the true India wasn't shown! But Mr Bachchan-the movie isn't about a bunch of hippie college students zooming on bikes, romancing their girlfriends and talking about being friends forever, if that's your version of the true India. It's a movie about a slum dweller so thats probabaly why Danny Boyle decided to skip showing Jamal Mallik sitting with Latika at Marine Drive or Bandstand, holding hands and indulging in sweet nothings. Perhaps if this movie was made 30 years ago, you would probabaly be starring in it and young Jamal would hunt down the Gangster who tried to blind you and kidnapped Latika. Jamal would then go on to kill him right in front of Latika to show how much he loves her. Then there would be a chase scene with the police on Jamal's tail, through the Mumbai city instead of the slums before young Jamal is taken up by a rival Gangster. Jamal soon grows into Amitabh Bachchan, who is now the right hand man of that rival ganster and mouths dialogues like-"Jamal Malik sirf ek baar bolta hai...uske baad uski banduk bolti hai!" Latika ofcorse is very happy to be a Gangsters wife though she does dread the moment when Jamal's crimes will finally catch up with him. Just for kicks-we will have Salim become a cop and replay that famous Deewaar scene where Salim will say "Mere paas Maa hai!" Oh I get the picture-30 years ago Slumdog Millionaire would have been Deewar. So you are just complaining that you weren't told that one of your movies was being remade. Ah well-even if in some weird way Slumdog Millionaire is a remake of Deewaar lets be honest and say that atleast Danny Boyle did a much better job than Ram Gopal Verma did when he remade Sholay as the now epic Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag. And atleast the villain wasn't named Babban! Oh-didn't that star you Mr Bachchan? I am so sorry!
See, I am not against people not liking Slumdog. I am against people who slam it for the completey wrong reasons. Yes, if you don't like it because you couldn't believe all these incidents happening to one man-it is acceptable. If you didn't like it because you find it unbelievable that all the questions Jamal is asked happens to be linearly arranged in his life, yes, that's a loophole in the plot and a very big one at that! If you found the part where Jamal and Salim grow up to be engish speaking teenagers and quiet fluently at that as unrealistic-then you are definitely not in the wrong! But to slam it simply because you think it depicts and worse demeans, India in a wrong way-sorry guys...but you need to wake up and smell the coffee! First wake up to the fact that this is a movie and a director has the right to take cinematic liberties. If Ashutosh Gowariker can fictionalize the story of Akbar and win awards for it, if he can show all english men as mean and evil as he did in Lagaan and go to the oscars-then what exactly are you complaining about here? And if you really want to look at demeaning something then why don't you watch Fashion? Madhur Bhandarkar's supposed true expose on the fashion world has its protagonist falling from the pedestals of a principled life into the world of pre-marital sex, drugs, booze and manipulation. But what does it take for her to finally realize that she has reached the ebbs of her own principles? It takes her to sleep with a black guy. She wakes up one night, naked with a Black guy and she suddenly realizes how horribly wrong she has gone. If this doesn't smack of racism-then what does? And we accuse some one else of demeaning our country. Look in the mirror dear Indians, look in the mirror!
It's one thing to criticize a movie, it's another to start a smear campaign against it. Mr Bachchan and Priyadarshan have done exactly that. Many have said that we can make a movie as good if not better than Slumdog Millionaire. I have just one thing to tell them-please do. You call Slumdog Millionaire just another masala potboiler which would have been panned if it had been made for an Indian audience. Respected fraternity of Bollywood-we never said we don't like masala potboilers. We just don't like bad movies, that's all. And Slumdog Millionaire is anything but a bad movie. I would have loved it more than anyone else in the world if an Indian film director-A Mani Ratnam or Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra had made Slumdog Millionaire and would be up for the best director oscar instead of Danny Boyle. But unfortunately-that's not the case. It's Danny Boyle and though I refuse to call Slumdog an Indian movie, it is in the end an Indian story if not an Indian movie and I can take pride in that. It's a movie whose protagonist maybe Jamal Malil but its star is the city that I love the most in the world-Mumbai. And Mumbai maybe about tall skyscrapers, traffic blocks, multiplexes and malls, with its jeans clad boys and mini skirt wearing girls sipping coffee in CCD or having a drink and dancing away to glory at Cosmos but it is also just as much about those shirtless people living in the small temporary huts by the roadside, taking a crap at the railway station and not aware that there is something even called a multiplex or a mall. It's a world that exists how much ever Mr Bachchan or Priyadarshan or any of us may seem to deny it. And if Farhan Akhtar can show Mumbai as the city of the urban youth with absolutely no hint of the slum world in Dil Chahta Hai, then can't Danny Boyle show the slum world? Then ofcorse we would be quick to come to Farhan Akhtar's defense and say that DCH was a movie about the urban youth. Just like that sweethearts-Slumdog is a movie about the slums. Accept it and move on!!
As for me-I truly, honestly and from the bottom of my heart loved Slumdog Millionaire. I was moved by this story of a slum dweller and his quest to be with the girl he loves. Maybe it was unrealistic, maybe there were too many co-incidences, maybe it was manilpuative, maybe slum dwellers don't speak english at all, leave alone so fluently-but when Jamal finally meets Latika at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus on that fateful evening, I couldn't help but cry! Tears rolled down my cheeks as Jamal felt the scar on Latika's face! The two of them had suffered so much, had seen so much pain that to finally seen them unite, to finally see their love being fulfilled, it almost felt as if this was my story. My triumph! It wasn't the fact that Jamal Malik wins a million rupees at the end that gave me goosebumps, it was the fact that he finally got the girl he loved that did! It wasn't his destiny to win a million rupees, it was his destiny to be with Latika. And it takes absolutely brilliant direction and a rivetting screenplay to achieve that.
Jamal asks Latika in the final scene what they are going to survive on. She, in perhaps a cliched way, replies "Love." The dialogue maybe horribly cilched but was wonderfully effective. And slumdog sweetheart-thats what you are going to survive on. On the love showered to you by the hundreds of millions of people all over the world. It's the kind of love that Bollywod filmmakers can only dream of. And no wonder Mr Bachchan and a few others are jealous. Their movies never got the kind of love that you have despite being the biggest superstar of the country. And it's jealousy that making them say all these nasty things. Forgive them!
Just like Jamal Malik, Slumdog Millionaire was born to lose but is destined to win!! All those who didn't like the movie because it demeans India can take a hike. Bring on the oscars. JAI HO!!
