The curious case of Slumdog Millionaire
Perspective
Samir Roy
Issue date: 5/19/09 Section: Opinion
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It had been father's purpose to bring the culture of India with him into his new country back in the 60's, and devoted the majority of his life in the States to normalizing it within American culture.
I spent most of my youth performing in programs put on by the Indian community, dancing to Hindi film songs and acting in plays based on religious folklore in pursuit of this goal. So when this film wandered into my midst, I couldn't help but feel that boundless excitement coursing through my veins.
It was the excitement of finding representation on the big screen welcomed by the dominant culture.
Though sad that my father no longer resided here physically to witness the massive boom of popularity his motherland enjoyed as a byproduct of the film, I could not wait to buy my ticket.
Once I saw the film, however, that bubble burst. Something seemed terribly wrong with this movie. (And I mean beyond the ridiculous conceit of the time-skipping narrative structure; in which the order of the questions asked of the main character aligns perfectly with the chronology of remembered life experiences that enabled him to answer them.)
For one, there was no sense of any genuine connection with the setting. Something about the insistence on filtered lighting, the cantilevered camera angles and overzealous camera movement, the jitter-addled editing, the reliance on close-ups and the soundtrack's bombastic swells to generate emotion, spoke to a fundamental mistrust of both the land and the audience's intelligence. At no point does the film challenge the audience to contemplate the social ills the film proposes to address. Boyle doesn't even trust the audience to comprehend imagery from the slums, and the harsh realities of life within them, without the overkill of his fashionable stylistic window-dressing and songs by pretentious indie-darling M.I.A.
I personally find it more than a little distasteful for any storyteller to use people's struggles to bring gravitas to a fairy-tale, while failing to spare a thought to the potential causes and solutions to those problems.
Though it may be true that Indian culture places a premium on fate, I fail to see the use of that belief to craft a deus-ex-machina as justifiable. When Jamal wins the money, finds the girl and arrives at his happily ever after, complete with Bollywood dance number over the credits, I felt tremendous rage. The whole film stunk of award-hunting frankly, happy to use misery to give their film color, but unwilling to pursue it any further to its natural conclusion, for fear of alienating voters. The musical number numbs us, betrays no hint of any possible trouble in the future, and deliberately fails to remind us of the troubles that have come before. It's a movie that wants the recognition of a serious picture, but not the downer ending that commonly comes with it; an unrealistic story that exploits realism for profit.
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