Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a film of the "World is Flat" era. Although Bollywood films have been around for years, they were beginning to register in the brains of Americans perhaps in the mid 90s. I had heard of such films from 1991 or 1992, but it probably took Americans until 1995 or so to get some idea of Bollywood films. Roger Ebert wrote about Bollywood when he went to visit India some number of years.

With a large number of Indians in the US, the advent of freely available video on YouTube and the like, Bollywood films are at least somewhat accessible in the US. I remember a few years ago, some company, I think DirecTV made a commercial with a guy sitting and dancing in his seat to a Bollywood film when the actor in the film stops acting and says "This is awful! You should be watching an action picture or science fiction!" and goes on to suggest DirectTV before continuing on with the dance. I thought that was particularly obscure, though very funny, tapping into a phenomenon few Americans were aware of.

India's impact in the popular imagination has come courtesy of the Internet age, which has meant a transformation of the world in so many ways. For example, the increasing access of the Internet to well-educated Indians has opened up the world to India, and this means more than entertainment. It also means access to software.

The open source revolution would not have been half as successful without the Web, which allowed you to get to the software. The computer revolution not only transformed the US, but it meant other countries could get involved, and thus was born, merely a few years after the browser, a huge Indian IT industry and the well-known call centers.

Slumdog Millionaire taps into all of modern India, though it focuses on a side of India that few people, including Indians, have seen depicted in Indian films. Most developing nations seem to go through a phase where film becomes extremely popular. At one point, Taiwanese were the most avid filmgoers. Eventually, film is replaced by television and the quality of television goes up, while films become less escapist fare and deal with topics that are more artistic and less wildly popular.

The common Bollywood film is escapism (Bollywood, so called, because its center is in Bombay, thus Bombay Hollywood, or Bollywood, for short). Due to the strong traditions of song and dance in India, infused through centuries of tradition, most films have their Austin Powers like moment where the lead actor and actress dance and "sing". I say "sing" because singing has been a tradition, and you don't let actors and actresses (a la Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter) do their own singing. Oh, no, that won't do.

Although the trend in American musicals, however rare they are now, is to let the actors do their own singing, when musicals were popular, it was common to dub other singers. Julie Andrews apparently sang for Audrie Hepburn in one film. In this case, though, it was one singing actress singing for a non-singing actress. In Bollywood films, singers whose faces never see the light of day, but whose name are well-known, e.g. Asha Bhosle, voice over famous actors who are asked to act and dance, but not sing their own songs (just as most actors would not play their own musical instruments).

There have been films set in India before, but usually, in stereotypical views of India, or from a mostly Western viewpoint, or from the long past.

Slumdog Millionaire explores the seedy underbelly of huge cities, termed "metros" in India, where large numbers of the extremely poor live in slums.

Interestingly enough, the film focuses on two Muslim brothers, Salim and Jamal. Jamal is the ostensible hero of the film, who is on the verge of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. The film, as most people know, is told in flashback, as Jamal explains how an uneducated slumdog knows the answers to very difficult questions, and each answer reveals a dark period in his life.

You can appreciate the accuracy of some parts of the film if you know a bit of Hindi and have visited India. I was in Mumbai about two years ago, and there are kids who come to the taxis begging for money. I was told that if you have a baby, you would get even more money. The average well-to-do Indian is as unmoved by this experience as we are when we see beggars on the street. Americans are typically shocked, and want to give money to the poor Indians, which they are more than happy to take.

One of the scenes involves a child who sings well enough that his keepers decide to blind him purposely so he can fetch even more money. I will say I didn't see any blind child beggars, but I could see this happening.

Roger Ebert notes that these kids (Jamal and Salim) are scam artists and convince foreigners to take their shoes off so they can steal them. However, what he doesn't know is that various temples (like the Taj Mahal) require all visitors to go barefoot, with their shoes held at a central area and picked up at the end of the day. The idea, I believe, is more out of respect for the area much like Asians prefer you to remove your shoes before entering the main house.

You can hear terms like "chai walla" used in the film, which basically is a tea guy. Jamal works at a call center where he delivers tea to employees. When you have a country of a billion people, keeping them employed is a big issue, so small services like delivering tea to IT employees is one way to do this. It's considered a lowly job which is why the host of the game show makes fun of his background.

Mumbai is well known for dabbawallas. These guys pick up meals from the wives, lunch boxes called "tiffins" (apparently a British term, but like many British terms, only preserved in modern Indian English), deliver the meals to their husbands and return the boxes after lunch. The efficiency of delivering these meals for low cost to many employees is considered a marvel of logistical efficiency. These guys are also called "tiffin wallas" which means the "tiffin" or "lunch box" guy.

Knowing some swear words also helps. Sprinklings of "mother chod" or "chutia" (which is motherf*cker and c*nt) respectively add to the roughness of the film, something that again, would probably not be seen as much in Bollywood films which are generally family entertainment.

The film opens up with classic films by Amitabh Bachchan, who is India's most famous actor (at least, in Bollywood). His son, Abhishek, married Aishwarya Rai, called by 60 minutes as the most beautiful woman in the world. Unlike their Hollywood equivalents, movie star weddings are generally for life. There's no Elizabeth Taylor, seven marriage equivalent, in India where divorce is still practically unknown and where arranged marriages are still quite common.

Funny enough, Slumdog Millionaire does follow a convention of Bollywood films which is the main characters are in love. As much as arranged marriages are the norm in India, it doesn't make for good drama. Parental involvement with children is still huge, and one way it often manifests itself is through arranged marriages. Jamal pines for Latika, his childhood sweetheart.

I give credit to the casting director for finding little kids, especially the one that plays Salim, that resemble the adult version. I'd almost believe they cast the kid first and found a comparable teen to play the adult role.

Although a film set in India, there are Western touches, including Danny Boyle's very visual eye. He also portrays Westerners who are sympathetic to the slumdogs. This comes from an understanding of how the West perceives Indians (as tourists).

Boyle had music done by A.R. Rahman, a famous Bollywood compose, compose music for Slumdog.

The film ends in a Bollywood dance scene, though clear the actors are not dancers. This is done with the casualness of average people doing dance, which leads to a kind of realness, and is perhaps the cleverest way to keep an audience sitting through credits (for those that hate to do credits).

Ah, so the film itself. Well, I had basically known the outline of the plot. Although the visuals are stunning, the history interesting, I just couldn't get into the main story. It probably doesn't help that Dev Patel is only OK as an actor. Also, the idea of using Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as the conceit was, I dunno, a bit too cute.

Even that idea is a commentary on the international spread of ideas. That show, along with Big Brother and American Idol (which was Pop Idol in the UK), have spread throughout the world. Using this show is a sly way to comment on this phenomenon.

I'm currently listening to Jai Ho, the song used to accompany the dance sequence at the end. It's interesting how they decide to let the woman sing in a "lower" voice. Bollywood songs have women sing in falsetto to sound even younger. It's so commonly done that I'm sure the average Indian doesn't even think that the women are singing so high. Admittedly, all the men sound alike. You never hear a gruff voiced or extremely baritone man sing a song in these films. This is one fallout of lacking singer-songwriters. Singers sing, and songwriters write song, so it creates generic sounding singers and songs.

So the film was good and gives a view of India I has only barely seen, though perhaps more aware of than those who haven't visited India. However, I had a tough time getting fully engaged in the story of Jamal's longing for Latika, since she is something of a weird distant memory, a little bit like Anakin's longing for Amidala/Padme.

I'd give it about a B, I think. Worth watching to give insight into India, and I'm sure some folks will love the way it ends.