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MichaelB wrote:

Salman Rushdie wrote: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?

Sort of. I suppose the difference is that Von Trier explicitly acknowledged them as 'unrealistic' and metaphoric tales with the way he shot his two US films (and Dancer). Which is why Von Trier's films seem in some ways to be less offensive as they never really pretend to be about a country, just a non-plane travelling Dane's impressions of the US through the exposure to American culture that we all have, where ever we live (and how that culture is changed and interpreted by people who otherwise have no exposure to other aspects of America!) The US films are less interesting because of their narratives than for their exploration of issues of human behaviour - everything else is just set dressing.

If a version of Slumdog Millionaire was created to be closer to something like Dogville, then Boyle would have shot it in a warehouse on the outskirts of London and it would have been about his idea of India that he had received through watching Bollywood films (there is a little of that with the final dance sequence, though it sounds as if he didn't have much exposure to them before making the film) or the way Hollywood films interpreted India to the rest of the world, maybe mixed with a little Satyajit Ray! Then the use of British Indian actors in the main roles instead of trying for an indiginous verisimilitude would actually add a meaningful extra dimension (as using black British actors in some of the roles of the slaves did in Manderley). The one element of Slumdog that inadvertenly captures something of the idea of that is the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? set, since the darkened studio seems to be the same set up around the world!

They are two very different approaches to filmmaking. Neither is the 'right' or 'wrong' way to go about making a film (though I prefer something like Dogville - imagine if Slumdog had drawn chalk marks on the ground and the poor kid was being tortured by the police ten feet away from an oblivious studio audience! India (or Brazil) would be a great place to use that kind of style, showing wealth and poverty existing side by side, and the self-inflicted blindness required in order not to acknowledge that fact. The Five Obstructions has a few sequences with that idea as their subject), but I do agree somewhat with the Rushdie argument about slum tourism, where we get the thrill of danger and experiencing the darker side of life but with the assurance of a happy ending that makes the suffering worthwhile.

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

That is why I would place the film below The Beach (even Boyle's slightly watered down film of it), as that material was all about tourism and looking for a 'real' holiday experience (as defined by your expectations of what a real experience would be), but of not being able to cope with that reality when you encounter it, instead moulding it to fit in with your own fragile expectations and projections without acknowledging such to be the case. Which sort of negates the lofty purpose of travelling to "see the world" in the first place. Slumdog, even if unintentionally, would seem to make an excellent double bill with The Beach.

The one thing to come out of this is that my interest in seeing The Darjeeling Limited has been reignited!

Kirkinson wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote: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.

Right, but I think Rushdie is too quick to claim the film is "colonialist". The film is foremost, as Rushdie points out, a fantasy that secondarily is "about" India. The major failing of Boyle's film, is that it relies far too heavily on the creaky mechanisms of the plot. If the film doesn't delve realistically into what life is really like in the slums, it's merely because the script doesn't it give it that opportunity. If anything, the film's premise is too broad. It could've just as easily been set in a Detroit slum and it really wouldn't lose any of its effect. If audiences and critics have responded, it's because its the kind of story - little-guy-makes-a-big-score-and-saves-the-girl - that is popular and people like. However, to claim that Boyle is somehow promoting some kind of third-world tourism is reactionary at best. Boyle didn't set out to make a documentary, but a thoroughly (tepid) fantasy/romance.

Saw it tonight. Reading negative reviews here made me laugh. It's a dark-pretty fantasy, the Oliver of the new century. It's for the heart, not for the mind. I became sucked into the film right away, thanks to the wonderful weaving of the story that is strangely familiar and new at the same time, and the charming tapestry of the pop and the classic.

Michael wrote:It's for the heart, not for the mind.

I presume by that you mean cynically sentimental, dishonest, cliched and pandering.

That's also what I thought he meant.

Well he said it without saying it, which is the clearest method I think.

Question: Did any one else go "jeez Louise" when the kid was beaten and the American couple goes "We'll show you what the real America is about"? It's hard to describe my emotions during that scene, but the only way I can describe it was that I felt embarassed for the film.

Can't we just get off the topic about how Danny Boyle isn't allowed to make films in other countries and just agree that the script was awful?

You had me at "Danny Boyle isn't allowed to make films"

Yes, I was being scarcastic. That part with the American tourists, what a disasterous, ridiculous cliche. Bleck.

While watching it last night, my mind wandered to Renoir's The River and for some reason, Chungking Express - their greatness placed me in the persepective of the film, its lameness, its failure. Its Hallmark charm infects a lot of people, the same way Amelie does.. not necessarily a bad thing but Slumdog Millionaire - even though a promising blend of fantasy-romance, magic realism, Bollywood, travelogue/postcards, Dickens - didn't work for me.

Although this has more to do with FOX stupid plan of barebone DVDs for rental store than with Blockbuster in general, here is the first fallout of the studio's corporate idiocy:

Buyers Receive "Rental" Version of Slumdog Millionaire
1 April 2009 3:38 AM, PDT

Fox Home Video's newly inaugurated strategy of removing "extras" from DVDs sent to rental stores ran into trouble this week as thousands of buyers of the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire discovered that the extras, such as the "making of" documentary and deleted scenes, which were advertised on the packaging were not included on the disc itself. On her Deadline Hollywood Daily website, Nikki Finke noted that so many complaints poured into Amazon, that the online retailer posted an alert notice reading, "We are aware that special features were missing from a number of Slumdog Millionaire DVDs. Fox has set up a hotline telephone number (1-888-223-4FOX) for those consumers who may have purchased a version that does not contain special features. Upon calling the hotline, these consumers will be able to have their disc replaced for one containing special features. Fox regrets any inconvenience this has caused."

I honestly don't understand this strategy. Any revenue they might possibly get from people buying Slumdog Millionaire at retail after having rented it from Blockbuster would surely be dwarfed by the cost of mastering and pressing two different runs of discs, no? I mean, is that what this strategy is meant to achieve? People wanting to buy the disc because they need to own some shitty "making of" documentary? Or is it meant to curtail the second-hand market (i.e. people not wanting the rental discs because they're not the "real" DVD)?

Well, whatever they hoped to achieve, they've cocked it up in a big way.

This is common practice in the UK (aside from this obvious blunder, of course). I remember being disappointed that the rental versions of The New World and A Dirty Shame had none of the special features of the retail versions, which matched the R1 editions. I'm not sure which other distributors other than Entertainment do this though; 2-disc sets are often slimmed down to 1, but that's not so unique.

Matt wrote: Or is it meant to curtail the second-hand market (i.e. people not wanting the rental discs because they're not the "real" DVD)?

That's about it. Studios are blaming the secondary market the same way video game companies are as the top issue causing the decline of sales in their product. Blockbuster, being in the horrible position they are in right now, obliged to FOX strategy without any fight. And yes, there are people, including myself sometimes, that will not buy a barebones DVD, if there is another one out there with extras. What is going to end up happening is that Blockbuster will get stuck with old inventory. By the time they price those disc at $5 a piece, Wal-Mart will be having the same DVD, new, for the same price and all the extras.

Fox needs to see that the decline of sales has more to do with the decline of the economy as well as corporations like Wal-Mart devaluing the product by placing it in the bargain bins just 2-3 months after the DVD is released.

I'm still surprised that some individuals on this forum thought "Slumdog Millionaire" was actually going to be anything more than a heartwarming and entertaining yet slightly smarmy and culturally shallow film. I had a great time watching it and felt like I had received good value for my money, mostly because I didn't expect "Slumdog Millionaire " to be City of God as interpreted by Satyajit Ray. It's freakin' Danny Boyle, after all.

Danny Boyle is set to chair the jury at the Shanghai International Film Festival next month. This is seen as a real coup here, as illustrated by this poorly translated hagiographic copy on the SIFF site.

Slumdog Millionaire is playing in theaters now and seems to be heading towards blockbuster status (only 20 foreign films are allowed to be shown in China per year). And the Chinese* -- seeing themselves in competition with India, but better -- are envious and annoyed that India has had such a breakout collaboration/entry into the US market. It's kind of ironic given that Chinese still routinely express disgust with Zhang YiMou's handful of early films for showing the poor and ugly side of China. But they also want the exposure, money and cultural influence/cachet that India is perceived as getting. I'd be very surprised if Boyle isn't pitched a heap of somewhat similar projects to be filmed in China.


* at least through the state-owned media, which shapes a lot of public opinion here, and apparently in many elements of the commercial film industry.