[Assam] Slumdog Millionaire

[Chan Mahanta]

Hi R:

Glad you all enjoyed the movie. I had not read any reviews before 
this one. The one you include is very much to the point I think.

The movie is essentially of the Bollywood genre', as the reviewer 
explains, except in fancy terms, like "----OK, the concept bends 
coincidence to the breaking point. But Jamal's traumatic youth is his 
lifeline. Boyle makes magic realism part of the film's fabric,--" ; 
but it is a Bollywood movie that Bollywood itself would never make, 
even if it could.

>The no-bull honesty of Slumdog Millionaire hits you hard.--

*** Absolutely!

c











At 8:01 PM -0600 12/25/08, Rajen & Ajanta Barua wrote:
>Friends
>Today on Christmass Day, our whole family went to see the movie 
>Slumdog Millionaire.
>
>What a beautiful movie!
>What a love story!
>What an entertaining way of telling the real story of other India!
>What a Christmass Gift to our family!
>
>I could resisit looking what type of review the movie is receiving. 
>I am glad to see most of these are very positive.
>The following is a typical one,
>Congratualtions to Anthony Dod Mantle.
>He has done a great service not only to the art of movie but to India herself.
>Thanks
>Rajen Barua
>
>
>Th movie  has the goods to bust out as a scrappy contender in the 
>Oscar race. It's modern India standing in for a world in full 
>economic spin. It's an explosion of color and light with the 
>darkness ever ready to invade. It's a family film of shocking 
>brutality, a romance haunted by sexual abuse, a fantasy of wealth 
>fueled by crushing poverty.
>You won't find many fairy tales that open with a graphic torture 
>scene. The cops think 18-year-old Jamal Malik (a sensational Dev 
>Patel) is a fraud. Goaded by the show's host (the superb Anil 
>Kapoor), the police inspector (Irrfan Khan) is determined to beat 
>the truth out of Jamal before he goes back on the show and hits the 
>jackpot of 20 million rupees. Presumably this is not the way Regis 
>Philbin ran things when the show hit America in 1999.
>
>Brimming with humor and heartbreak, Slumdog Millionaire meets at the 
>border of art and commerce and lets one flow into the other as if 
>that were the natural order of things. Sweet. Screenwriter Simon 
>Beaufoy (The Full Monty) brings focus to Q & A, the episodic Vikas 
>Swarup novel on which the film is based. Still, the MVP here is 
>Danny Boyle, who directs the film brilliantly. Boyle is the 
>Irish-Catholic working-class Brit who put his surreal mark on 
>zombies (28 Days Later) and smack addicts (Trainspotting), and made 
>us see ourselves in their blood wars. Those movies were so potent, 
>as was his 1994 debut, Shallow Grave, that we looked the other way 
>when Boyle went Hollywood with The Beach and screwed up with A Life 
>Less Ordinary. Somehow we knew that Boyle had the stuff to work 
>miracles.
>
>Here's the proof. We learn the history of Jamal and the other 
>principal characters in flashbacks, as Jamal answers questions on 
>the TV show not from book knowledge - he has none - but his own life 
>experiences. Jamal is searching for two people from his childhood: 
>his wild older brother Salim (an outstanding Madhur Mittal), now a 
>thief and killer, and his adored Latika (the achingly lovely Freida 
>Pinto), now stepping up from child prostitute to plaything of a 
>gangster. Every incident, including the brothers' watching their 
>mother die in an anti-Muslim riot, feeds into Jamal's answers on the 
>show. OK, the concept bends coincidence to the breaking point. But 
>Jamal's traumatic youth is his lifeline. Boyle makes magic realism 
>part of the film's fabric, the essential part that lets in hope 
>without compromising integrity.
>
>Anthony Dod Mantle uses compact digital cameras to move with speed 
>and stealth through the slums and palaces of Mumbai. The film is a 
>visual wonder, propelled by A.R. Rahman's hip-hopping score and 
>Chris Dickens' kinetic editing. The whoosh of action and romance 
>pulls you in, but it's the bruised characters who hold you there. 
>Every step Jamal takes toward his final answer could get him killed. 
>Even in the Bollywood musical number that ends the film, joy and 
>pain are still joined in the dance. The no-bull honesty of Slumdog 
>Millionaire hits you hard. It's the real deal. No cheating.
>
>
>
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