Slumdog Millionaire could only have been made by a westerner
The following article from The Guardian newspaper's Film Blog sheds some interesting light on how this truly wonderful film (set in Mumbai) is being received by certain high-profile Indians. It raises the intriguing argument that it has taken a Westerner to produce what may well be the most authentic piece of Indian "social realism" for many years, given India tendancy towards cinematic escapism through the medium of Bollywood films.
The miracle of the film is that is does so in a way that doesn't dwell on the poverty in a preachy kind of way. Nor does it (in my opinion) simply exploit the depravation for entertainment. As Boyle himself said in a Culture Show interview with Mark Kermode on BBC 2, Mumbai slums are incredibly busy places with people working their socks off, finding a way to get their children to school. They are dynamic and inventive, the place buzzing with life and the poverty by no means abject.
The film reflects all of this brilliantly and the same adjectives can be applied to it: dynamic, buzzing with energy, inventive... Ultimately it is a hymn to Mumbai and a hymn to the resilience of the human spirit. It puts me in mind of the lyrics from the intro. to the Icicle Works' song from the 1980's, "Birds Fly (Whisper to a scream)":
"Some things take forever,
But with building bricks of trust and love,
Mountains can be moved."
Here at last is the aforementioned article:
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"Danny Boyle's Bafta-nominated crowd-pleaser shows how blind Bollywood producers are to the reality of India.
After its rapturous reception in Britain and America, knives are being sharpened forSlumdog Millionaire. "Vile," is how Alice Miles described the movie in The Times. "Slumdog Millionaire is poverty porn" that invites the viewer to enjoy the miseries it depicts, she adds.
Even that old iconicBollywoodblusterer, Amitabh Bachchan, has thrown his empty-headed two rupees' worth into the mix. "If Slumdog Millionaire projects India as a third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations," he bellowed. "It's just that the Slumdog Millionaire idea, authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a westerner, gets creative global recognition," he added.
Bachchan is no doubt riled, as many other Bollwood no-talents will be, about the fact that the best film to be made about India in recent times has been made by a white man,Danny Boyle. Just as Spike Lee got hissy with Quentin Tarantino after he proved he could make hipper films about black people than Lee could (Lee ostentatiously criticised Tarantino's use of the word "nigger" while littering his own films with the same language), so many Indians will be upset about a westerner having a better understanding of their country than they do. Bachchan gave one of the worst English-language performances in cinematic history with his embarrassingly stupid portrayal of an ageing thespian in The Last Lear. Having failed miserably at cultivating a western audience, it must hurt him to be so monumentally upstaged by white folk on his home turf.
The bitter truth is, Slumdog Millionaire could only have been made by westerners. The talent exists in India for such movies: much of it, like the brilliant actor Irrfan Khan, contributed to this film. But Bollywood producers, fixated with making flimsy films about the lives of the middle class, will never throw their weight behind such projects. Like Bachchan, they are too blind to what India really is to deal with it. Poor Indians, like those in Slumdog, do not constitute India's "murky underbelly" as Bachchan moronically describes them. They, in fact, are the nation. Over 80% of Indians live on less than $2.50 (£1.70) a day; 40% on less than $1.25. A third of the world's poorest people are Indian, as are 40% of all malnourished children. In Mumbai alone, 2.6 million children live on the street or in slums, and 400,000 work in prostitution. But these people are absent from mainstream Bollywood cinema.
Bachchan's blinkered comments prove how hopelessly blind he and most of Bollywood are to the reality of India and how wholly incapable they are of making films that can address it. Instead, they produce worthless trash like Jaane Tu, Rock On!! and Love Story 2050, full of affluent young Indians desperately, and mostly idiotically, trying to look cool and modern.
Slumdog Millionaire is based on the novel, Q&A, by Vikas Swarup. I know Vikas – an Indian diplomat, he loves his country as much as anyone and did it the service of telling its truth with great warmth and humanity. And Danny Boyle's film continues in precisely the same vein. His innovative brilliance, fresh perspective and foreign money was vital. As an outsider, he saw the truth that middle-class Indians are too often inured to: that countless people exist in conditions close to hell yet maintain a breath-taking exuberance, dignity and decency. These people embody the tremendous spirit and strength of India and its civilisation. They deserve the attention of its film-makers. I have no doubt that Slumdog Millionaire will encourage many more honest films to be produced in India. But they should be ashamed that it took a white man to show India how to do it."
Comments
the problem with west is that if they speak its "freedom of speech", but then the others are (probably) not fit for such "freedoms" for whatever reasons they may deem fit. had a movie been made on the racist/drug addict world of US/UK your media would have come out with blazing guns. But then thats always how indifferent you ppl want to be in potraying rest of the world, middle east or africa is always potrayed as run by gangs etc.EU were crying hoarse in the symbol incident (czech).
you ppl also extend the same idea to religion, the moron in the danish news paper who blurted abuse at islam had freedom of speech, and when ppl in islamic countries started depicting christ as a pig - that was BADDD.
just to straighten you up on ur facts most are wrong, plus i guess you dont have the additional information that a dollar is worth more in india than in uk/us.
and what amitabh actually said may not have reached your media (or maybe they thing publishing crap is more awesome and sellable) - those lines were by some guy who had commented on his blog.
about a year back, i was once chatting with a chinese, and he taught me a very important lesson - he told me a story. this is how it goes...
once there are civilized ppl (say 1) living in their land. everything is beautiful - they have culture, art, prosperity & peace. and one day barbarians and goons come (say 2). so 2s go on raping and looting 1s. time passes by, 1s regather and force these 2s out of their lands. however by now they have become poor and weak. and do you know what the 2s say ???
they say that 1s are weak, third world ppl with no culture...
and thats the end...
but the story does not end... that chinese guy told me when ever some westerner hurls abuses just tell him this story and also tell him, that wheel is about to turn... and 1s will be back where they were...
its just a matter of time.
so wait and watch...