As I watched last night’s Academy Award presentation, I couldn’t help but think back to the 2009 awards nostalgically, a time where Slumdog mania was in full force, Bollywood stars were taking the stage, and saris were seen on the red carpet. At last night’s ceremony, though the one shoulder dress was the trend, not a sari was to be seen. Nor a desi person in the crowd. Who woulda thought – there actually was an end to the Slumdog Millionaire madness.
But there was one film. I hadn’t heard of it till last night, but as I saw the nominees scroll for short films, I saw Kavi scroll by. Though the film did not win last night, I was still curious to see what it was all about.
‘Kavi’, American director Gregg Helvey’s short film about an Indian slave boy has lost out the Oscar in the Best Short Film (Live Action) category to the Danish entry ‘The New Tenants’…The 19-minute-long fictional film in Hindi, was the only India connection at this year’s Oscars, as opposed to last year when the Mumbai based potboiler ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ bagged eight golden trophies. [ptinews]
I’m not usually a fan of shorts, but I may have to check Kavi out. I do find some of the language on the movie’s website slightly problematic though, and I wonder if the film has a similar undertone. Has anyone out there seen the movie? Also, thoughts on last night’s Academy Awards in this post Slumdog era?
There’s this movie industry in a country that defies logic. The country has large masses of poor folk, but also world’s richest people who can handily outspend any tycoon in the West. It’s suffered years (some would say centuries) of oppression and then a few decades of misplaced socialistic paternalism. It’s cultural riches are simply timeless and diverse and varied beyond belief. It also churns out movies like nobody’s business. While the chattering classes abroad sip champagne as they watch bleak movies about this land tut-tutting about how bad things are, back in this land the people at large couldn’t care less. While one big wealthy nation wants to make English its sole language, and another all-but-superpower nation has centuries ago by stamping out minority cultures created a robot like monoculture. Yet this land in question is home to vibrant cinema in seven different languages each a world within itself. Its movie makers (by which we include those who act, direct, and do everything connected with the film) have for the most part, as a rule, come from humble beginnings and struggled and trudged and plodded their way to success. So these movie makers like to make uplifting films that show people triumphing against the odds. There is of course a smaller ginger group within this land that isn’t happy with this. How can you ignore the reality they thunder as they swill their scotch and soda. Arre baba as long as I make money for my employees and my distributor why are you worried? Asks the big bannerwala swilling his tharra! Along every now and then comes the foreign film maker – some of native origin and others of elsewhere. They don’t understand the ways of the big bannerwalas because for one they have been taught that these guys make “escapist fantasies” and have “poor production values” and beat their womenfolk for fun. So our imports look for seamy side of things, and believe me it isn’t hard to find. They make the movie and now and then it makes it big out there in the West. Some of us who live in the West are thrilled! Wow! We have made it they exclaim. Little do they realize that every land and every artistic domain has its own things to tell and own things to do, ultimately obsessed with itself. So one year after the high comes the low. But why blame the West? In the meanwhile back where the action is, in that land, in the year since, the much hyped movie is already forgotten. The biggest hits of the year are a film about three engg school grads in one language, and in another about a rural romance, and yet another two films starring a 45 year old Hercules like ripped Romeo that has frontbenchers in every C class town queing up to watch.
For Dilip Kumar aka Prema aka [I can’t call you that because the Mods will spike this comment] there may be many more slum dwellers than BPO workers. But it would do well for the West to make more movies about India’s service sector tigers for the reasons MoorNam wrote about last year. Making and watching trash like SDM may satisfy the limo-lib’s patronising instincts and satisfy the reactionary right’s “Milton is the Best/We follow XYZ so we are better off” notions. But the reality is different. Those millions of slumdwellers aren’t living like that SDM hero. Some of them go to classes like Patna’s Ramanujam Coaching Center and make it to the IITs. To quote from the article The son of a sweeper, Nagendra studied in the free government village school and was always ‘first’ in class. He hated the sight of seeing his father cleaning sewers and vowed he wouldn’t do that. Borrowed Rs 60 to buy the Super 30 application form. There are at this very moment probably a few million Indians who although desperately poor are aiming to leapfrog to the future. I should know. Our housekeeper whose husband was forced off her lands 16 years ago and had to move to Chennai has since educated her three daughters – one’s a CPA, the 2nd a pharmacist, and the third studying to be a doctor. They made it out of a slum with no electricity to a home with a fast web connection and air-conditioning. Legal process offshoring which was a barely $50 million business ten years back in India is now worth $0.5 billion and on its way to doubling itself in the next five years. That means dimmer prospects for US law grads as has already happened to their counterparts in Blighty. This isn’t your grandma’s offshoring, not even your Momma’s offshoring. When Fortune 100 firms have begun to base their backoffice in Chennai and Indian CAs lead global financial audits, you know how far things have gone. So rather than hankering for opportunities to trivialize and patronize, wake up and smell the coffee. A couple of years back my local newspaper (small town but big profile) ran a three part feature on Ivory Coast. The last part featured the country’s education system and showed a photograph of high schoolers and college students milling around an airport parking lot early in the evening. It turns out that the airport is the only place in Abidjan that has uninterrupted power at night, so that’s where students gather to do their homework and study for the next day’s classes. When the poor don’t act poor and are ambitious as heck as I found in India this December you had better take notice. Indian movies are different and they have been taking up provocative themes all the time. Do Bigha Zameen, BootPolish (bleaker than SMD), then. And now we have a director like Bala, winner of this year’s National Award for Best Director with his Naan Kadavul aka Aham Brahmasmi about a castaway brought up as an aghori. Bala earlier made Pitamaghan that earned a Best Actor award for Vikram in his role as a vettiyan – caretaker of a cemetery. Danny Boyle may know the Scots but as far as making movies set in India, he is a novice, and it shows.
This is a silly discussion and, I am sorry to say, a silly post. Hollywood is a vast industry, it generates enormous quantities of product, and, yes, depicting non-western cultures play some role in it as a kind of appetizer or dessert. And, yes, like any other industry (chemicals, software, auto), hollywood is basically focused on maximizing profit.
So why all this angst? Silly hair-splitting about authenticity and exploitation? It just comes across as adolescent and whiny.
It is your opinion that this is a silly discussion. If it doesn’t appeal to you move on to things that do.
I would like to add a very few words which I hope will help Melissa and LinZi get it. Supposing a Bollywood producer came to the US and made a movie about a kid growing up in East Harlem, or better yet West Virginia. The kid makes his way as best he can, with special adventures that involve sending his bare arm through places where the roto rooter usually goes, in pursuit of a movie star, a clear indication of his drive to succeed in life, and then, long story short, after staying away from dealing heroin, he suddenly wins at matka! Simple enough story line, girl woven in loosely, no need to know anything more than how poor some Americans are! This Bollywood producer’s team would of course make sure all the actors were not unionized professionals but were instead finangled into accepting “slave wages” for their labor on a fairly informal basis. This would ensure that while they would likely be too uninformed to latch onto any inaccuracies in the way they were depicted in a foreign language, in case they did catch on, they would certainly be far too poor to sue over misrepresentations about their values, their history, their concerns, about which there would be plenty of distortions, all necessary to keep the plot ticking along. Then, this film would be set to music by Burt Bachrach and given a bunch of Indian awards with a great deal of fanfare and hullaballoo, the actors feted and bounced around through the Bollywood PR machine and then, after the Bollywood team had made their bucks, of course, all of it quickly forgotten.
‘Amrita’. Right. My comment about why SDM might appeal to American consumers is of course short-sided, since I did not discuss EVERY SINGLE possible thing wrong with the movie in one breath. My apologizes. How dare I? Because ANY single concept I omit from a statement is one I must be oblivious or complicit to. You have me so pegged. I think you know my thoughts. It’s crazy.
@Amrita: I think you’ll find earlier I suggested that sometimes a movie is just a movie. Nowhere have I (or Linzi) suggested that SM is an “omg totally perfect true depiction of India!” We “get it” just fine. It’s just entertainment. We understand that. That’s why we haven’t brought up the multitude of Hindi films set in the US that are, honestly, laughable in their depiction of Americans, American life, etc. Because it’s not important. I’m not sure why you aren’t able to grasp that someone’s enjoyment of a film doesn’t mean they think it’s perfect. If people are going to get up in arms over such things, they should probably just never watch another non-documentary film again.
the comments of shilip, jyotsana and amritha say more about themselves than about the movie. there’s very little need for this prickliness but may be, just may be, at the bottom of it all, you feel ashamed of the poverty and would rather not have anyone draw attention to it? if not, then what’s going on? why does it matter how indians are represented in british or american movies?
i am not a psychologist or anything but i get the uneasy feeling that there is a deep inferiority complex in you guys.
Of course it was fetishizing India. Specifically, the prolific use of handcuffs was making us all look kinky. It got to the point where I could not go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless I administered a slight spanking.
<>
(snicker)
You don’t know what its like to be desperately poor, your housekeeper does. So her story means poverty is just a question of an individual working hard? You have more in common with Americans then you care to admit!
I don’t know man. Why would we want to discuss a subject in a thread about that subject?
After all, it couldn’t possibly be that you have anything to learn from listening to anyone else’s opinion could it? Why respect someone else’s perspectives if you can just chalk all disagreement up to malice or mental disorder?
Not all the people who live in the slums thought the movie respected them:
Riots as Indian slum dwellers object to Slumdog Millionaire
Disagreeing on how well or poorly the people who live in slums was depicted in the movie does not mean being in denial about poverty.
“Vikas Swarup, author of Q and A, on which the screenplay is based, says Slumdog might have “fallen by the wayside if it had been made 20 years ago.” He says at least part of the film’s success is because “India is the flavor of the season. People want to know about this country of 9% growth and enormous variety. People want to see what makes India tick.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1873926,00.html#ixzz0hi0cWm3k
Swarup’s book showed the diversity of India better than the movie. Poverty is a part of countries, India included. But “poverty” is not what makes India or the poor “tick.” They are human beings who are more than their economic situation.
Exactly! There wasn’t a single good guy in that entire damn movie. Jamal basically has no personality and just runs around being obsessed with Latika, Latika is just a pretty face who doesn’t really do anything besides run through a train-station at the end. These are the “good guys” only because Boyle got around to characterizing them just enough to elicit our sympathy, but the whole time our eyes are on what’s happening to them and what’s being done to them rather than anything coming from within. This lack of agency on the part of the darkies is common and patronizing theme in Western depictions of people in developing countries where the characters are generally cast as either victims or villains, rarely as heroic role models. If you do have a moral exemplar he’s always off to the side somewhere as a “Magical Negro” or as “Gunga Din.” If they succeed it’s because they’re victims who got lucky or benefited from the aid of some patron. And then every single other character is one kind of bastard or other. (You actually see the same kind of patronizing tone in Victorian era fiction about the British working class. This, along with the ponderous blocks of text, is why I never enjoyed Dickens or Horatio Alger.)
That’s why I really don’t understand all this “But poverty in India is real!” apologia. The people shown in that movie are not anything resembling India’s real poor. Yes, a lot of them are bastards who are just trying to swindle you, but most are actually some of the more honorable and generous people I’ve met. They certainly exceed your average middle-class American in generosity. Slumdog doesn’t show that though. The protagonists are empty shells who exist to move the plot along and every single one of the other characters are greedy, exploitative, abusive beasts. We can see why Prema might rave about such a film, but I’m perplexed how people who actually express concern about poverty and the poor in India would think this is a worthwhile or positive depiction.
Here is a perspective that I have not heard before:
“Slumdog Millionaire may be set to sweep up some Oscars tomorrow, but does the film perpetuate myths and myopic perspectives? Slum dwellers of the subcontinent have rioted at screenings of the flick, while others see the movie as nothing more than “poverty porn at its worst“.
The most compelling argument against Slumdog, however, is that the film implies that adopting Western values is the answer to poverty, a disturbing and dangerous assertion…” Rob Maguire
A movie on this aspect of city slums probably won’t be as popular, but showing their industriousness their self efficacy is something that I think would do more justice than SDM corny love story:
“This is also how we should think of the sprawling new slums of the developing world: not as doomed, deforming environments but as the low-cost housing built for (and by) displaced, formerly rural, people drawn into the modern urbanized economy and energetically aspiring to a better life.
The Economist captured this atmosphere of activity and hope in a December 2007 article about Dharavi, a Mumbai slum. Dharavi had “maybe a million residents crammed into a square mile of low-rise wood, concrete and rusted iron,” yes, but its residents were also “thriving in hardship.” Small “hutment” factories, for instance, exported leather belts directly to Wal-Mart.
Dharavi, the magazine observed, was “organic and miraculously harmonious … intensely human.” The FinMark Trust, a South African housing think tank, has found no fewer than 335,000 businesses in one Johannesburg slum, one in seven home-based. They include everything from hairdressers and bars to welders and furniture makers.
These informal sprawls, for all their problems, may well prove to be a source of new products–and refinements and improvements of existing products–helping to fire future economic growth. Jane Jacobs envisioned this transformative churning in her landmark book The Economy of Cities–a process in which the poor, making the best of their circumstances, create substitutes for expensive imports and eventually develop superior products for export.” http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/19/slumdog-millionaire-bollywood-opinions-contributors_jacob_riis.html?partner=contextstory
To be fair, Dharavi is kind of the Beverly Hills of slum-life. Because it’s so big it does get some public service penetration and enough people who, though they don’t make much money individually, are squeezed together in sufficiently large concentrations to have an aggregate income that can keep an economy vibrant. A lot of other ancillary slums aren’t so lucky.
I’ve seen hundreds of Indian films, mostly Hindi and Tamil with a few Malayalam, Telugu, and Bengali flicks thrown in for good measure. I am not speaking to the accuracy/ inaccuracy of the movie, I have no idea. My observation as an Indocinephile (ahem) is that Danny Boyle hardly did anything new, in terms of representing poverty or slums in India in a film. If one wants to have one’s nose rubbed in Indian poverty, man’s inhumanity to man (and woman), the sheer unfairness of life at the bottom of the heap but also its moments of dignity, it’s been done plenty already on the silver screen by Indian directors, sometimes a lot more graphically and in a lot more slanted and biased fashion than in SDM. The Tamil director Bala, mentioned above, with Naan Kadavul especially but also with Sethu and Pithmagan, is particularly manipulative and graphic. Mandur Bhandarkar’s Chandni Bar with Tabu and Kamal’s Karutha Pakshikal with Mammootty were movies with big stars, great production values, heavy and nuanced storylines that won acclaim in India— but why no crossover? I think Bollywood and Kollywood just don’t care to market their best stuff, or the stuff that shows India with warts on the nose, to the West. And why should they?
In my opinion, it sounds like the main offense Danny Boyle has committed with SDM (secondarily to being British, how galling!) was being wildly successful, which to give the guy his due he had no way of knowing would happen—he took a chance with that format. If it had been a flop and not gotten any acclaim at all that would have suited the sour grape patrol much better. I suspect the desi attitude might have boiled down to: “See, we’re still oppressed and invisible– even a well known and acclaimed western director with a feel good story line can’t succeed if he uses an Indian milieu. Wanh, wanh, woe is us.†We would have been urging our friends to give the movie a chance, not rolling our eyes in annoyance over it being called a Bollywood fil-um.
Danny Boyle’s SDM was an Oliver Twist style story of hope and perseverance, using the device of an Indian slum as a stew that the character rises out of — yep, that’s the movies. It was an enjoyable rags to riches yarn. He never claimed to be making a film for the ages, just an entertainment. So it had its inaccuracies, it wasn’t made by God, it was made by a 50 something Brit. If people don’t realize there is a difference between the movies and real life, doesn’t seem like Danny Boyle is the first one to string up. Even documentaries aren’t pristine depictions of life, we could argue endlessly about POV, editing, choice of interviews/material, etc. On the whole it has put India on the radar of the average American beyond Gandhi, Mother Theresa, oursourcing, and the Taj Mahal, and I think that’s a good thing.
Technically, he’s a Scot. I wouldn’t begrudge the British, they’re just wankers. But the Scots are colonized by wankers. They couldn’t even find a decent country to be colonized by!
I do have to give him credit for one thing, I really liked how he did the subtitles. Visually it helps keep your eyes on the action as you read in a way that having them show up on the bottom of the screen doesn’t and it followed the rhythms of how the speakers were talking so you can more easily see the actors’ expressions juxtaposed with exactly what they’re saying. That’s not something I’ve seen before and would like to see it done more often whenever foreign languages are spoken.
naan kadavul and pithamagan are canonical examples of showboating and ridiculous over-the-topness masquerading as depth. sort of like how rainman is a thoughtful depiction of autism. slumdog is clearly escapist fare and was done very well. almost all the complaints are borne out of an inferiority complex, especially considering that the majority of bollywood films portray very non-representative slices of india and do it with a hundredth the quality.
That’s right. If we don’t all go go ga ga over this film, it is because of an inferiority complex. Not that we have a different opinion. No only the ones with healthy self esteem can truly see its worth and would not dare criticize it. That would be gauche. Damn it, why don’t those silly inferiority complexed brown people see how what a wonderful Westernized film on an Indian subject this is! Don’t you see we in the West don’t only love shallow films like Rambo, but also nitty gritty real poverty films located in the 3rd world while we eat popcorn and diet coke.
Folks,
As a big fan of Bollywood movies, I think SDM is the BEST BOLLYWOOD movie ever made. SDM has all ingredients of a typical bollywood movie. Like all other Bollywood movies it is a life long love story that starts in childhood and it is got action, drama, emotion, poverty, corruption, honesty, sacrifice and luck.
It is far superior than other Bollywood movies because it is slick, good editing, relevent script and perfect direction. There was no boring moment in the movie.
Karan Johar shall take lessons from Danny Boyle and attempt to make MNK again to make it less annoying and hopefully entertaining.
Melissa and LinZi, angered much? Do I need to be handcuffed and a little bit spanked?
sweetheart, it’s not because you didnt go all ga ga over the film, i am referring to the “danny boyle doesn’t know india and this film is a very bad rendition of india and doesn’t show the complexity of our great country and is poverty porn and….” nonsense.
your comment lives my handle.
“Disagreeing on how well or poorly the people who live in slums was depicted in the movie does not mean being in denial about poverty.”
Can someone please tell me exactly what the “poor depiction” was?
I can only really think of the icky toilet– which seems like an obvious movie storyline rather than real life.
What else was a poor depiction? Parent’s being killed in an unfortunate way? Crappy schools with uniforms? Parentless children banding together? Kids riding the rails all over India? Evil people trying to do bad things to them while taking money from them? The fact that one brother got involved in crime? And the other tried not to?
The whole thing is a goopy sappy love story with a perfect ending, but really, besides the crappy toilet, literally, what was the “poor” depiction. And I wonder how many of you have spent time in the slums of Indian to know how accurate it was anyways.
“nitty gritty real poverty films located in the 3rd world while we eat popcorn and diet coke.”
That’s what the people in the “third world” cinemas are eating too… unless they want a nice helping of american corn or nachos.
“Do I need to be handcuffed and a little bit spanked?”
Gross. And more than a little bit creepy.
looks like all the secular slumdog aficionados have found their bete noires in hyperamerican women. cameron’s x-wife could have made slumdog.
I have no desire to read through 75 comments debating whether or not Slumdog was or was not Indian or whether a movie directed by a non-South Asian is still South Asian… so I’m skipping over all of these comments.
Taz, your question was has anyone seen the movie. Yes I have. I went to see all of the Oscar short films.
Here’s what I have to say about Kavi. I thought it was a fantastic short film that had me in tears within the first 30 seconds. I’m uncertain of what you didn’t like about the language on the website. The film is about modern-day slavery. Kavi, the main character, is a young boy who works at a brick kiln. He and his parents work every day at the factory. He wants to go to school but cannot because his father owes a debt to the kiln owner. He wants to play cricket more than anything in the whole world and because he stops working to hand a cricket ball over to school boys who were playing near by he gets chained to a wall by the owner. His father tries to stop it and is beaten by the owner’s thugs. Human rights workers attempt to free the workers but the owner has caught on and ships off the workers to another site so when the cops come there is no one but Kavi left to free.
I think what is written on the website is true to the mission of the film, which was the filmmaker’s masters thesis. The movie isn’t about Kavi’s desi-ness. It could have been set in any country around the world that has child slave labor.
Its a great film and I strongly suggest you all take the time to see it.
It reminds me that when I visit India and I see people working that they are not all necessarily there because they WANT to be or because the CHOOSE to be… rather they may not have the choice and they may not have the freedom to leave.
I also saw Smile Pinky last year and that movie could have been about ANY of the numerous projects that The Smile Train conducts every year. It not necessarily about a desi girl. If you haven’t seen it, you should make the time to see it. Its an incredible film.
It’s ridiculous to say that SDM does not accurately depict slum life. WHOSE slum life are we meant to depict? Aren’t there millions of people in slums throughout India? How on earth would a movie comprehensively capture the lives and individual experiences of ALL of them? I will agree with the person who stated that the movie depicts some of the lowest dregs of society, but that IS a reality for many people who dwell in slums. It does not make it less accurate simply because it is not everyone’s reality.
I also feel that those who so vehemently dislike the movie seem to have the biggest issue with the fact that it was created by non-Indian people.
To the people who think the slum depiction in SDM was poor or in poor taste:- What do you expect in slums and how do you know it was not accurate?
To the people who are directly or indirectly implying that a British guy wanted to show poverty:- See serious cinema like Dev D, Manorama, Page 3 and older movie like Ankur – all these movies are made by Indians and no one from outside involved. These movies show the real face of presumable clean society.
SDM is a great movie.
Forbes has a piece on a slum development project in Mumbai.
Slumdog Billionaires
“Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an “escape” from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life.”
Escapist for whom? For us in the West? It did poorly in India:
Slumdog Millionaire, an Oscar Favorite, Is No Hit in India “”They won’t care much for this one.” For many Indians, the film’s subject and treatment are familiar to the point of being banal. A lot of Indians are not keen to watch it for the same reason they wouldn’t want to go to Varanasi or Pushkar for a holiday — it’s too much reality for what should be entertainment. “We see all this every day,” says Shikha Goyal, a Mumbai-based public relations executive who left halfway through the film. “You can’t live in Mumbai without seeing children begging at traffic lights and passing by slums on your way to work. But I don’t want to be reminded of that on a Saturday evening.” There is also a sense of injured national pride, especially for a lot of well-heeled metro dwellers, who say the film peddles “poverty porn” and “slum voyeurism.” “
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1873926,00.html#ixzz0hsViulcs
Slumdog Millionaire Review and the Amitabh Bachchan controversy January 24, 2009 “The scene where they show the slum “toilet†is one that I doubt any Indian director would have shown this close. But it’s a scene that western audiences will lap up, and why not. It is an example of how terrible our sanitation is. We know its horrors, but they don’t. The movie is clearly aimed at western audiences, whether knowingly or unknowingly.” This is from someone who liked the movie and wanted it to be successful. But in a way she said it best. The poverty scenes of this musical love story were for Western entertainment.
Escapist fare in India are the Bollywood films that are very much loved there, and panned here on this post in comparison to SDM.
I read about a documentary done here in America where the film director gave video cameras to a couple of kids in the public housing complex. See their lives through their eyes. It was them telling their story in their way. Honest depiction of life in the slums isn’t just the filthy living conditions. That is easy to do. People are more than where they live. Like the Forbes article I posted above about the changing view of slums in India, Brazil etc… Shabana Azmi did a lot for people living in slums. I remember her in the home of one woman in a documentary a couple years back, where her point was to change the image people have of those who live there. For us to see them more than just their living conditions. That home was small but well kept. I felt Azmi did more to show the rich humanity of people who live in the slums. Some of the people who live in the slums protested the movie SDM. Their point of view is deserved to be heard as much as anyone else’s. I think it is healthy self esteem for them to speak up for their feels. Those who don’t live in the slums who think this is poverty porn should not be so dismissed by those who like the movie as people with an inferiority complex. To me it is healthy self esteem when one expresses one’s views that goes against the grain of the popular view.
SDM to me was a corny musical love story set in the slums. Other than being set to Bollywood music and set in slums it was uninspiring – all other issues about the movie aside.
“4 mins excerpt from Bombay Our City (1985) (In the clip an angry slumdweller whose home has just been demolished accuses the filmmakers of exploiting images of poverty and injustice without being able to alter conditions in any way)
I chose this clip in part to reassure those who may have been upset at being addressed as the enemy that I was referring also to the enemy within. As a member of the Indian intelligentsia I know that all my good intentions don’t by themselves ensure that my work rises above voyeurism and becomes useful to the people I filmed. Bombay Our City made its share of noise in India and even won a national award for Best Documentary but the huts of the homeless continued to be demolished. We joined a movement for the Right to Shelter. After one of the slums we had filmed in was razed, some slum-dwellers and myself went on an indefinite hunger strike to demand resettlement. The following day a famous Bollywood star Shabana Azmi, who had seen Bombay Our City joined our hunger strike. We became front page news overnight. Within 5 days the government gave in and the evicted were granted an alternate site.” Anand Patwardhan
“”Slumdog Millionaire” was made about the people of Mumbai’s teeming slums, but it was not made for them. In the squalid shantytowns of Nehru Nagar, where parts of the Oscar-nominated film were shot, there was little of the excitement that has swept India since the low budget film emerged from obscurity to win four Golden Globes and 10 Oscar nominations. Many of the slum’s residents greeted Friday’s India release of the movie with indifference. … …In real life, however, things are slower and hotter, the streets are more broken and the smells of dirt, defecation, death are stronger. For the residents of Nehru Nagar, such stuff is not cinematic, it is home…. …When they do go [to the movies], they prefer the prefer the Bollywood staples of rich guys, gangsters and big song-and-dance numbers, not the grim reality of their daily lives. The few who are drawn to the film say it’s only because they love the music of composer A.R. Rahman, who was nominated for three Oscars, and because they are fans of the movie’s two Indian stars, Irrfan Khan and Anil Kapoor.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/24/slumdog-millionaire-greet_n_160550.html
escapist?? wtfuk. i thought it was realist. american tourist shoves crispy dolla bills into slumdoggie’s brown hand. “well, here’s the real America”. gee golly thankya mista. lolz. abd’ullahs fall for all kind of shit.
And yes I am aware Azmi liked SDM. If this film helps the awareness through a romantic musical and gets more aid to slum dwellers, then it has done something good. But for me there is something not quite right for those who live in the slums for their gritty living conditions to be for Westerners to lap up as one pro-SDM (above) mentioned.
“one pro-SDM (above) mentioned” I am referring to my post #84
Bescides SM, Bombay Dreams was also fetishizing India. That’s why I think those Indians who enjoy BDSM are propagating the very dominance and submission keeping us all in bondage.
For a much better alternative to Slumdog Millionaire or even the classic slumdog narrative of a life-changing opportunity to get rich , I would really recommend “Amal”. It was such an amazing movie set in New Delhi, and as close to being realist as possible. In contrast to Slumdog, one of the salient messages wasn’t about struggling to get out of poverty or the harsh realities of rickshaw and scooter wallas or street beggars, but how beauty and joy and all that’s essentially good can arise from these difficult circumstances. Sounds corny and cliche I know, but this movie’s far from being cliched. I’m surprised no one else has mentioned it…
“For us to see them more than just their living conditions. That home was small but well kept. I felt Azmi did more to show the rich humanity of people who live in the slums. Some of the people who live in the slums protested the movie SDM. Their point of view is deserved to be heard as much as anyone else’s. I think it is healthy self esteem for them to speak up for their feels. Those who don’t live in the slums who think this is poverty porn should not be so dismissed by those who like the movie as people with an inferiority complex. “
First, if I remember correctly, the most protest by slum dwellers was about the use of the term “slumdog”.
Second, this movie isn’t really about “slum dwelling families”. Early on the movie, the two boys (as well as their friend) as made into orphans– When the two boys did have parents, the mother seems like a pretty normal mom to me– trying to keep two mischievous boys out of trouble and make sure they went to school. The problem is– once they lose their family, they are not “slum dwellers” anymore– they are street children. And life for street children is a lot different than life in an intact family in a slum. Street children do a lot of the things the kids were depicted as doing– picking up various jobs like rag picking, hanging out where tourists are and giving “tours”, riding the trains all over India, being used/abused by criminal adults, police beating street children (this happens all the time, and police generally know if a child has a family to stand up for them or not– think about the police chasing the boys at the beginning of the movie and running into mom, and later when they are street children) This film didn’t even tackle much in terms of other huge dangers for street children– sexual abuse and drug abuse.
I actually didn’t really like SDM at all, I heard all the hype and when I saw it I was disappointed– the characters seem flat and unrealistic, the story line is super cheesy with a perfect ‘feel good’ ending. But I really don’t think the actually depicting of “things street children” do was all that off. In terms of the beggar-master- children do get disfigured to make money, and if not actually disfigured, they do other probably various dangerous things to garner sympathy– “rent” some one’s baby for the day. In Delhi I saw begging children who had stuck their hand in some horrible chemicals that would make their hand look like it had been horribly burned. While I don’t think it actually burned then– I shudder to think what dipping your hand in toxic chemicals daily can do to you.
Obviously this film is not meant to show the regular life of a slum dweller or a street child– it is a fantasy story about someone conquering the odds– a depressing beginning with a feel good end. I still maintain I was not really impressed… I saw it once and have no desire to see it again.
I would really like to hear some actual examples of things that are not “realistic” in terms of the poverty? Besides jumping in the the crappy-swamp-toilet.
“This film didn’t even tackle much in terms of other huge dangers for street children– sexual abuse and drug abuse. “
Actually, sorry, correction– I forgot that the little girl was forced by the older brother. A lot of young boys are also sexually exploited, especially street children, as well as girls.
LinZi, I believe I went into specifics about why I thought it was a bad movie. Jyotsana also made some salient points a few posts up from there.
Yoga Fire, I am not talking about whether the movie is good or not (like I said, I thought it was mediocre and agree with you on the shallowness of the characters).
I am asking for the people who specifically said “it does not depict slum life/poverty authentically”…. I am not talking about the characters or the storyline… which is of course.. a movie story line. I am asking about how slum life/poverty was portrayed, the milieu… people are screaming that it does not depict things accurately, yet all I see is problems with the main characters, who are not expected to be real people anyways (I mean, when we watch a movie, we aren’t expecting reality right? Especially a movie like this?)
I see a lot of people complaining how the poverty specifically is portrayed, yet I don’t see any specifics… I am just wondering what exactly people see as unrealistic about the poverty, slum life or street child life as backdrop?
I looked at Jyotsana’s comment and I just see a bunch of random commentary on poor people, I am not sure exactly what her point is about the movie specifically.
I just think if people have such complaints with the poverty being so unrealistic that they should easily be able to point out examples of inaccuracies?
I mentioned that he just jumps from cliche to cliche right? Every disease you see in House is an actual disease. But the chances of one doctor seeing more than one of them in his entire career are slim enough to border on impossible. Jamal’s backstory is slightly more plausible, but it really stretches the bounds of credibility that this kid manages to go through each and every cliched story that Danny Boyle has ever heard about street kids in poor countries. I think the point hit me hardest when it shows him working at a call-center. It’s in India, so OF COURSE he works at a call center. And OF COURSE he waited tables once. And OF COURSE he had to ride around on trains and give sham tours.
That is not realistic, it’s just exploiting lame cliches.
Ah. OK…. I see now..
I think the difference in opinion is from starting with a different assumption. I assumed that the movie was never supposed to be realism, or that realistic in the first place. I guess if you are making the assumption that he was intending to make a realistic movie, then you would have a problem with the cliches.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of Salaam Bombay? To juxtapose the two.
Please make up your mind, LinZi
an old wolf, seems to me Linzi’s statements are all in agreement– she feels the movie was unrealistic, but some of the details were accurate according to her first hand experience:
then she solicits others to talk specifically about the depictions in the movie: 94. “I am just wondering what exactly people see as unrealistic about the poverty, slum life or street child life as backdrop?”
cool handle, btw
So in conclusion, we’re oversensitive.
-a desi
“91. …”the characters seem flat and unrealistic, the story line is super cheesy with a perfect ‘feel good’ ending. But I really don’t think the actually depicting of “things street children” do was all that off.”
then she solicits others to talk specifically about the depictions in the movie: 94. “I am just wondering what exactly people see as unrealistic about the poverty, slum life or street child life as backdrop?””
Yes. What I meant to say was– the main characters and storyline are fakey and cheesy, but the milieu, environment, backdrop seem rather realistic in terms of slum-life or street children, from my experiences, at least. When people said “that’s not how poverty is” etc, I thought they were talking about the milieu, not the main characters/storyline, as I assumed that the main characters/storyline being a dramatic filmi story were already accepted as unrealistic. Hence the confusion.