Of Slumdog Millionaires, Mountains & Molehills...
Published by Aakarsh under India on Wednesday, March 25, 2009Everyone has an opinion on the film 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The movie has been the muse and theme of every journalist, film-maker, blogger, artist, politician and jobless people too. I never had any opinion on the film, when i watched it 4 months ago. Yet, i seem to be having one now, and my opinion is much more an opinion on the opinions of people rather than on the film itself.
I first heard of Slumdog Millionaire probably in July 2008, when i read somewhere that lyricist Gulzar has written one song for a Hollywood film. Later, I read/heard a lot about this film sweeping many awards in various film-festivals. Infact, the first prediction about composer A.R.Rahman winning an Oscar for this film came from writer-director Anurag Kashyap, on his blog and i got curious only after reading that post. I got the soundtrack eventually and was surprised at the euphoria that has caught up for that music; the music was not ARR's best and i didn’t understand why it was clicking. Few days after that, I watched the film and i understood that the way music has been treated in the film was different. Instead of pure orchestral or techno scores laid in the background, here is a film which 'sells' music on the face, in certain sequences. It was different and the difference turned into a shock-value that got all the attention and it just caught along.
Coming to the film, i neither liked it nor disliked it. It was just a watch for me. Nothing more, nothing less. Technically, it was brilliantly shot and the director did handle the kids and their performances well. And the theme of the film, 'Keep the Hope Alive', was well-intended, although they did not effectively translate such a noble theme into heart-wrenching emotional content. That it is hyped up is no surprise. Yet, it was just a time-pass watch. That's about it. And i moved on.
What really amused me was the sharp criticism that came thundering down, for no reason. A section of people had a problem with the film, for no reason. The reasons they cited, in the newspapers and website, seemed so frivolous that I couldn't help laughing everytime I read such opinions.
Reason#1: Mis-representation of India.
My take: Every year, more than a dozen mainstream films have the same theme of 'promiscuity', irrespective of the premise of the film (be it sexed up thrillers from mahesh bhatt camp or movies on corporate business houses or on film industry or page-3 media on fashion industry or on people living in metros etc etc.) and nature of the characters. Are they not showing Indian people in poor light in such films, as sex-starved licentious morons unhappy with their current relationships? How come we applaud such films then? And i don't quite get one basic logic. If SDM being shot in India, makes it complete India, then can we consider all those NRI-catering Hindi films to be Hollywood/British Films? That reminds me, i recently watched a film called "Outsourced", in which an American manager in a firm visits the Indian call-centre office and trains the team there. He eventually falls in love the team-lead, an Indian lady from a conservative household. In one of the scenes, they get to spend a night in a hotel room and they indulge in the cardinal mischief. In the morning, when she wakes up, she tells him that nobody should know about it and later tells him that she is already engaged to someone else. Now this got me thinking - How come people did not raise a cry on this? How did they allow the director to show an Indian woman as an unscrupulous bitch? Is it not misrepresentation of Indian woman? or of Call Centre Employees?
Reason#2: Willful portrayal of India as 3rd world country by insulting Indians
My Take: Oh! Boy! This is imagination. Who wrote the book firstly? An Indian. coming to portrayal, what exactly did the film-maker portray? Slums? Well, a 1000 Hindi films portrayed slums before this film. probably 75% of Hindi films in 1980-90 era were based in slums, with protagonist (Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Govinda etc) jumping into a bathroom where a nymphet is bathing. How come no one raised a cry then? Did everyone feel proud about that? how come we never bothered about all those slumdogs before? oh! they never swept any awards. So, valid enough. since this film is hogging the attention, we ought to be sure that we are shown decently there, even if we are not.
Reason#3: Exporting Poverty-porn, exploitation of poverty, blah blah..
My Take: Would people label it the same, if the film-maker was an Indian? Decades ago, there were 2 genius film-makers in India, by names Satyajit Ray and Rithwik Ghatak. They made films, socially relevant to the period, with great portrayals. I am sure, if they were alive and if they made same films now, in this era, they too would have faced the same flak - poverty-porn. How is it that we consider them legends today, when their films sold poverty in many film festivals? Why them? What about Sudhir Mishra's film 'Dharavi'? Why is it considered to be among the good art-house films? Why didn’t we banish that film because it depicted slums? So, it is alright if an Indian film-maker shows poverty or slums? But it is not alright if a Hollywood filmmaker does it. It is alright if we and our people see us naked. But it is not for outsiders? (to think of it, i felt that the movie neither had poverty nor slums, they just appeared in the film, in few shots. Probably a Swades or Mother India had much more duration of poverty than SDM, but as i said, our nakedness should be the muse to entertain only us, but not foreigners). Firstly, it is not an export, since neither the director nor the producer was Indian. secondly, if the same people criticizing the film can export something better (which i welcome), why don't they do it? In the last 1 decade, what have we exported predominantly in films, other than Weddings, Raj/Rahul/Sameer and Bhangra?
And finally, nobody talks about eradicating poverty, but only about it being shown, if at all it really was. And does the origin of film-maker really matter? Infact, i believe that if this film was called as Q&A, instead of the now infamous - slumdog, people would have perceived it differently. It is all in the mind and perception.
Ultimately, it was just a film. A film, whose success was an accident. Neither the film-maker, not the crew aimed at any award and it is evident from the style of film-making itself. The movie looked more like a adventurous daily soap rather than an emotional story (emotional enough to grip the awards committee). ARR never made the music for a certain golden globe or an oscar. If he aimed at them, the score would have been different. He made some music on his Apple computer, for 15 days and used it in the film. Strange that it worked. Instead of being happy that it worked, we have a section of people who complain about the unworthiness of the score. Well, if India wins a match because of a Tendulkar's mediocre innings, do we celebrate the moment of victory? or do we lament about Tendulkar not playing up to his level or not playing the Bradman shots? The most brilliant comment came from an obscure composer called 'Aadesh Shrivastava', who said that the film upset him very much and that he would never compose music for such films, even if Steven Spielberg approaches him. Bravo! I liked his Hope (thats what the film was all about, in case he missed the point, evidently). Just that it blends into insanity.
And I forgot, in India, there must be a religious angle to just everything. I read recently that ARR's "I choose Love over Hate and I am here" statement at the Oscars, has far reaching inner meanings than the humble/noble thought it carries. A certain screwed up character, a journalist infact, wrote in his webpage/blog that ARR's statement actually points to his choice of Islam over Hinduism and the writer blasted ARR for equating Hinduism to Hate. After reading it, I really wondered - ' The no. of Morons in India, is rising, significantly for sure'.
Offlate, my social observations putforth many a question before me. Why is it that these days people have low thresholds of tolerance or level-headed thinking? people find faults so easily, with little issues or frivolous things? How come people are getting offended so easily? A SDM irks filmmakers or common people. a movie title irks barbers. showing a villain character's caste irks that caste people. showing someone smoke on screen irks a certain minister. a valentine's day or pubbing irks a political group. and the less I talk about religious intolerance, the better. And regional? sectoral? linguistic? But i am trying to understand the root cause of this low-theshold for social anger, which seems to be unleashing very quickly from people, be it any issue. Is it frustration? About what? It was not this way, even 5-6 years ago. Ofcourse, people have become very busy now with hardly any time left for themselves. In the little time available, they put their time, energy, emotions and reactions at the mercy of media, which is busy making its own gains, like everyone. By looming so many negative thoughts, at the slightest of the trigger, people are increasingly proving that 'level-headed thinking' and 'rationality' are being replaced by their mad chase for their own needs, wants and securities, in any form they desire. In this run, towards success and identity, unfortunately, in the aspects such as human understanding and tolerance, the quality of mindsets is sinking into a shitpot, much like a scene from the film. People might become Millionaires for sure, atleast in the quality and pursuit of their dreams, but at the cost of becoming slumdogs too, in their mind - brash, short-tempered and frustrated, much like all those who found faults with just a normal film.
