Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008)

[rohmerin]

The fact that this film is winning anything is a joke, Come on, the best film of the year? It's a XXI Dickens tale for earning Bollywood money. The story is good enough, but the film itself is as good as a Britney Spears videoclip eating chop suey, sorry, I meant Indian food.

Every 2008 probably Oscar nominee are highly pirated / uploaded here in Spain. Paying 6 euros foe this? come on, I'm going to delete the film and watch now Gran Torino.

[Antoine Doinel]

Every 2008 probably Oscar nominee are highly pirated / uploaded here in Spain.

Same here in North America. It's almost embarrassing how easy it is to download high quality screeners of Oscar films.

[Antoine Doinel]

Oprah loves it.

[wendersfan]

I'm quite simply astonished at how much I hated this movie. I would even go so far to say that I was offended by it. What a trite, formulaic, exploitative mess. I don't care if Boyle was trying to co-opt the cinematic language of another culture, what he ended up making was a tedious, two-hour music video about abject poverty, religious persecution, and an ossified class system.

bah.

[Barmy]

A group of potential criterionforum.org posters burn Boyle in effigy.

[Alyosha]

I would even go so far to say that I was offended by it. What a trite, formulaic, exploitative mess [...] what he ended up making was a tedious, two-hour music video about abject poverty

This was quite like what I felt after watching City of God. "This is how cool it is living on the streets in Brazil". In that case it doesn't matter if the director depicting the culture is from Brazil. The art work speaks for itself.

However, I wasn't at all as offended by Slumdog Millionaire simply because it felt more like a fantasy or an adventure that was placed in another context than the regular. More of a One Hundred Years of Solitude than a british kitchen sink drama - my experience of the film of course. I don't know if that was the director's intention.

[filmnoir1]

The problem with this film is Boyle's stylish use of the camera and the screenplay to fashion a Western style narrative of heterosexual love that disregards the realities of poverty, crime, and exploitation that have emerged in India as a result of globalization, free enterprise, and the constant need of the US to fashion the rest of the world so that it looks like us. In effect, the US is the parallel to the British Empire of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The only difference being that we claim to accept "difference" as long as it subsumes to US economic policies and structures. This sentiment gets to another flaw with the film, which is the idea of television show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" as a framing device. In celebrating the notion of excess and fantasy, which game shows serve, this film falls into the same trap.
One final thought is the absolute dishonest way that the film is being marketed in the US. The commercials make it look like this is a fun, song and dance film a' la Mumbai film culture, which in fact it is not. I would argue that this strategy is being used to exploit the exotic patina of the subject without preparing audiences to see a film that relishes its sense of Uber-authenticity by showing the horrendous living conditions of the people in India. I only hope that this film does not win best picture of 2008 because there were far better films than this one.

[tavernier]

I only hope that this film does not win best picture of 2008 because there were far better films than this one.

Since when has that been a criterion for winning the Oscar?

[exte]

I'm quite simply astonished at how much I hated this movie. I would even go so far to say that I was offended by it. What a trite, formulaic, exploitative mess. I don't care if Boyle was trying to co-opt the cinematic language of another culture, what he ended up making was a tedious, two-hour music video about abject poverty, religious persecution, and an ossified class system.

bah.

Were you expecting a documentary? Is it possible to make an entertainment with the rules of abject povery, or is that too sensitive a subject, like the Holocaust for example?

[John Cope]

An interesting response to add here, given the responses expressed so far, is this one by Dennis Grunes. He briefly addresses the Dickensian qualities which rohmerin mentions above, though he sees the parallels in a far more appreciative light. The reason Grunes' take was of interest to me is that, while I respect the intellectual investment he makes in the films he reviews, most of the time I find him insufferably elitist so surrendering to this one seemed noteworthy. It must boil (sorry) down to that Dickensian element.

For my own part, I enjoyed the film but would agree with those who see it as overrated. Ultimately for me it's Boyle's weakest picture since A Life Less Ordinary, though it's still infinitely superior to that.

[royalton]

It's been a while, but I honestly think I preferred A Life Less Ordinary.

I don't hate Slumdog, even though I think it's merely "cute" and fair to middling. There's a lot of stuff in it I enjoy for and despite the preciousness, but I keep sight of what it is. What I hate is the cult of critical acclaim that calls it a masterpiece. It's very apropos that Film Forum is doing a Depression-era Films set this month; again, you might as well tag Slumdog onto the end next to Gold Diggers of 1933.

[colinr0380]

David Bordwell dissects the film.

[John Cope]

Michael Wood launches a serviceable defense of the film. Still, ultimately his argument just seems to be that he really, really likes it.

My problem was and is that most of the things I did like exist in isolation from one another and any meaningful synthesis within the larger narrative. It's easy enough, and satisfying enough I suppose, to make the case Wood does here in his final paragraph but the end results don't amount to much. The picture has a pretty limited resonance and the reason for that is, I think, because Boyle himself just really, really likes this story and drifts by punch drunk on his own enthusiasm for it.

For instance, I thought the gesture toward "destiny" at the end was actually kind of nervy and bracing considering what the film had been doing throughout playing off the value of a knowledge based economy or one based on the value of personally derived experience. The choice at the end is a leap into not just faith, which is the romantic understanding, but also into an acknowledgment of limitation in which an "irrational" act of willful self-abandonment becomes the point itself (the acceptance of the ultimacy of fate, luck, providence, what have you). But the scene plays flat because Boyle doesn't demonstrate a nuanced grasp of the implications of that act. For him it seems to just be hopeful and romantic.

It's sort of similar actually to the scene in (of all things) Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in which Indy and Mutt find the eponymous skull in a tomb buried under skeletal fragments of ancient figures. Given the way Indy brushes rather briskly past these remains, and especially in contrast to the reverence he showed toward all such things before, a friend asked me whether Spielberg/Lucas were critiquing the impatient dismissals of pure progressivism. I doubt they had this in mind and, unfortunately, I doubt Boyle had much in mind either.

[wendersfan]

I'm quite simply astonished at how much I hated this movie. I would even go so far to say that I was offended by it. What a trite, formulaic, exploitative mess. I don't care if Boyle was trying to co-opt the cinematic language of another culture, what he ended up making was a tedious, two-hour music video about abject poverty, religious persecution, and an ossified class system.

bah.

Were you expecting a documentary? Is it possible to make an entertainment with the rules of abject povery, or is that too sensitive a subject, like the Holocaust for example?

No, I was not expecting a documentary, but neither was I expecting a music video. Maybe it's the white western guy in me talking, but I probably wouldn't have minded so much if it weren't a Brit making a fantasy set in the slums of a former colonial possession.

While the plots are in no way similar, think about a film like Jia Zhangke's The World as an example of a work that, while decidedly not a documentary, and using fantastical imagery in several instances, deals with issues of urban, third world poverty with a lot more tact than Slumdog.

[AWA]

I saw this tonight based on the buzz from friends and the press and had avoided reading through this thread so that I could make up my own mind without some of the critical heavy-weights that post here influencing my viewing.

Very disappointing - the Love McGuffin that was the film's axis was as shallow and hollow as some Disney cartoon movie - "I knew you when I was 8, therefore we're meant to be together". If that's the definition of true love, I guess I should go to my Grade 5 class reunion and meet my soulmate then? Really, this whole film centered around the most idiotic of love stories - once the story developed to the point of the lonely girl standing in the rain who was invited to share in the shelter, I knew how this was going to play out and I wasn't happy about it.

Spoiler

As the film began working towards a climax, I actually found myself rooting for a tragic ending to avoid the film going where it was so obviously heading... I was hoping he got the question wrong, found out the woman didn't really love him but just needed the support to get out and the brother would die a stupid cowardly death.... throw some sort of curveball at us to at least challenge us at this last at bat... to torture the metaphor, we were lobed a slow softball in a lightweight, cliche ending whose only benefit was give the impression feeling placated was actually a meaningful "feel good" ending. So, to my dismay, Jamal's shot in the dark won him all the money, the girl and his brother died as some sort of hero. And then the cast danced in a train station with MTV Cribs type credits flashing. After I finished puking, I left the theatre.

The flashy cinematography, break neck speed editing, back and forth narrative (that, once it was used less and less as the backstory got up to speed with the present narrative really hurt the film) and overbearing score / soundtrack / sound effects worked overtime to gloss over the fact this character had absolutely no idea what love was at all, which could have made for a better story in itself.

Spoiler

Imagine the ending if he found his dream girl was into bondage and other bizarre fetishes and had developed a hefty drug addiction while working for the gangsters.

Kidding aside, I agree with most of the criticisms here. The dimestore "destiny" philosophy was a paper thin attempt at making the story meaningful in any way and so many other aspects that could have had potential to be probed for deeper meaning were treated as though the writer and director were completely unaware they had even achieved this in the making of the script and film (as someone else has already pointed out). To boot, apparently "destiny" only applies to the chosen few. I wonder what that poor kid who had his eyesite forceably removed because he couldn't carry a tune very well thought of the concept of "destiny" as he continued to hussle on the permantly dark streets. Or those other people forced to rummage through the dump to survive. I imagine that would have carried more weight had this been addressed somehow - but, just like some crappy Disney film, destiny appears to only serve a fortunate individual, all other bastards be damned to suffer in supporting roles. Life's like that, don't you know, when you work for a corporation. Thus it must have the Almighty's approval and in It's design, right? This film seems to be aimed at those who grew up watching pap family films but have not yet developed the intellect or the capacity to think beyond the morals of those films. This was just the shallow-dame-trapped-in-a-tower-underdog-prince-saving story made pasable and more meaningful for adults by dressing it up with a complex back-and-forth narrative involving poverty, violence, gangs, sex / drugs / etc etc.

I couldn't help but think this was City Of God remade as a more palatable film for the masses. City Of God had it's critics for stylizing the ghetto life in Brazil (as opposed to something like Tirador which achieved similar results without the fancy production values), but at least it still had some real guts and balls to rob it's characters of their dignity and courage from time to time and refuse to shy away from addressing the hopelessness and the overall horrible pervasive bleakness. Yes, City Of God was dressing the under privledged in fashionable clothes, but Slumdog just made caricatures out of these people and their situations. When the bearded old man blinded that kid for not singing well enough, I half expected Indiana Jones to show up, toss a stone at somebody and then jump in some mine cart and go on a wild ride with the bad guys in hot pursuit. Hold on Shorty, it's gonna be a wild ride!.... oye.

Also - was it just me or did the flipping back and forth between lo-fi camera resolution and the 35mm really get annoying? I was perfectly fine with passing off the TV looking stuff when watching the "Millionaire" show as it was meant to obviously represent television... but during actual scenes, going from one camera type to the next was truly annoying and, IMO, more an example of lazy filmmaking than it was any kind of artistic decision. The tight quarters and low light situations were shot digitally, which just seemed to beg the question of whether or not Boyle was just shooting those shots on those cameras because it was easier or was he attempting to achieve some kind of mixed textural aesthetic? Highly unlikely, but when actual scenes began to cut back and forth, it just became grating to watch.

[Antoine Doinel]

Well, I guess this was inevitable.

[John Cope]

Here's something to stir up the regular suspects again.

[foggy eyes]

Salman Rushdie discusses literary adaptation and takes an extended pot-shot at Slumdog in The Guardian:

What can one say about Slumdog Millionaire, adapted from the novel Q&A by the Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup and directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan, which won eight Oscars, including best picture? A feelgood movie about the dreadful Bombay slums, an opulently photographed movie about extreme poverty, a romantic, Bollywoodised look at the harsh, unromantic underbelly of India - well - it feels good, right? And, just to clinch it, there's a nifty Bollywood dance sequence at the end. (Actually, it's an amazingly second-rate dance sequence even by Bollywood's standards, but never mind.) It's probably pointless to go up against such a popular film, but let me try.

The problems begin with the work being adapted. Swarup's novel is a corny potboiler, with a plot that defies belief: a boy from the slums somehow manages to get on to the hit Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and answers all his questions correctly because the random accidents of his life have, in a series of outrageous coincidences, given him the information he needs, and are conveniently asked in the order that allows his flashbacks to occur in chronological sequence. This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name. It is a plot device faithfully preserved by the film-makers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief.

It used to be the case that western movies about India were about blonde women arriving there to find, almost at once, a maharajah to fall in love with, the supply of such maharajahs being apparently endless and specially provided for English or American blondes; or they were about European women accusing non-maharajah Indians of rape, perhaps because they were so indignant at having being approached by a non-maharajah; or they were about dashing white men galloping about the colonies firing pistols and unsheathing sabres, to varying effect. Now that sort of exoticism has lost its appeal; people want, instead, enough grit and violence to convince themselves that what they are seeing is authentic; but it's still tourism. If the earlier films were raj tourism, maharajah-tourism, then we, today, have slum tourism instead. In an interview conducted at the Telluride film festival last autumn, Boyle, when asked why he had chosen a project so different from his usual material, answered that he had never been to India and knew nothing about it, so he thought this project was a great opportunity. Listening to him, I imagined an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion. But for a first world director to say that about the third world is considered praiseworthy, an indication of his artistic daring. The double standards of post-colonial attitudes have not yet wholly faded away.

[MichaelB]

Listening to him, I imagined an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion.

Didn't Lars Von Trier do something more or less identical? Twice?

[jbeall]

Listening to him, I imagined an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion.

Didn't Lars Von Trier do something more or less identical? Twice?

Yes, but you see, von Trier is a "serious" filmmaker, so it's okay when he does it.

[Kirkinson]

Rushdie's point is about first world directors and third world countries. I don't really agree with the speculation that an Indian director making a film about a New York lowlife would automatically be critically ravaged, but in any case Lars von Trier making a film about the USA doesn't really figure into the argument because Denmark and the USA are both "first world" countries.

[knives]

The second paragraph actually sums up my problems with the movie pretty well. I hate agreeing with Rushdie though so I'll push Von Trier, who has a lot of hate on him even if its not mostly done by critics.

[Antoine Doinel]

I haven't seen many Bollywood movies, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the majority of them opulently photographed fantasies, with unbelievably corny plotlines, that romanticize India? In fact, a lot of American films - classic or contemporary - are about less fortunate people/classes finding themselves in improbably romantic/comedic/dramatic situations and coming out OK in the end. I guess I see what Rushdie is driving at, but you can pretty much say that about any film industry or popular film around the world. Moreover, his entire argument is based on the premise of a film world that never really existed. Many American filmmakers were immigrants or are children of immigrants; contemporary foreign filmmakers make films in America or American filmmakers are finding funding overseas. This idea that only an Indian (or American or English or German or whatever) filmmaker is worthy enough to make a film in or about their own country is simply wrongheaded.

[Kirkinson]

This idea that only an Indian (or American or English or German or whatever) filmmaker is worthy enough to make a film in or about their own country is simply wrongheaded.

That idea is wrongheaded, but that's not what he's saying. He's talking about the colonialist mindset of first world cultures towards third world cultures. He's not upset that a British filmmaker made a film about India, he's upset that a British filmmaker made a film about India that despite superficial appearances falls into the same sort of exotic adventurism that has long characterized stories about India from colonialist powers. His argument isn't about filmmakers crossing borders per se, it's specifically about colonialism.

[MichaelB]

There have been quite a few Bollywood films set (and shot) in Britain - and while I haven't seen any, I'm guessing we're not exactly talking Ken Loachian realism...