Slumdog
Millionaire
by Howard Schumann
Winner of the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival,
Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is
the feel-good story of an orphaned, street-wise young man trying to
make it big on India’s version of the TV show Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire? while hoping that the girl he has loved since
childhood is watching. Based on the novel Q&A by Vikas
Swarup and supported by the stunning cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle
and the music of A.R. Rahman, Slumdog reflects the chaos of
Mumbai (formerly Bombay) India, where it was filmed. Submerging the
viewer in a cacophony of color and sound, the camera swoops and swirls
in an often dizzying pace, taking us from the desolation of back alleys
and garbage dumps to modern high rises and the fantastic beauty of the
Taj Mahal.
Boyle uses
nine different non-professional actors in three different time frames,
each faithfully representing their character as they grow and develop.
In the opening scene, the hero Jamal Malik, brilliantly performed by
Dev Patel, is being questioned by the Police Inspector (Irrfan Khan)
who simply cannot understand how a “slumdog” like Jamal,
without any education, can answer question after question on the game
show without lying or cheating. In a city of 13 million people where
the police know they can get away with almost anything, the methods
of torture used to extract a confession are graphically displayed. With
Jamal, however, they only succeed in uncovering the deeper truths of
his character as the film flashes back to specific incidents in his
life that reveal how his knowledge was gained by personal experience.
He knows, for
example, that the star of the 1973 film Zanjeer was Amitabh
Bachchan because he was his favorite actor as a little boy and was willing
to cover himself with filth just to get his autograph. Built on memory,
the film relives Jamal’s life from the death of his mother to
his entry into service to a cynical gangster who turns street children
into blind beggars, reminding us of the millions of third-world children,
not as lucky as Jamal, who fight against unending poverty each day.
Jamal is fortunate to have allies, however: his brother Salim (Azharuddin
Mohammed Ismail) and Latika (Rubina Ali), another orphan that Jamal
becomes attached to, form the “Three Musketeers,” ready
to do battle with the world.
Though circumstances
lead the three into different areas, Salim into the criminal underworld,
Latika to be “kept” by a rich man, and Jamal to become a
"chai wallah,” a server of tea to telemarketers, Jamal does
not give up, knowing that his life is governed by destiny and ruled
by love. The funniest scene is when Jamal and Salim find themselves
as tour guides at the Taj Mahal, inventing stories about the history
of the building that are probably as true as the official versions in
the brochures. The center of the film, however, revolves around Jamal’s
contesting for millions of rupees on the game show Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire?, not necessarily to become rich but to woo Latika
whom he knows is a fan of the show.
We root for
Jamal try to win his jackpot and get his girl. While we are aware that
the film is an unlikely fantasy, we also know that as barriers between
individuals and nations break down and the world moves toward a greater
sense of unity, the distinction between what is possible and what is
not is less rigid. Slumdog Millionaire may not be the best
film of the year, but with headlines telling us daily that the economy
is sinking and that climate change threatens our very existence, a film
that is a pure celebration of life is welcomed with a grateful heart.
©2008 Howard Schumann
CineScene
