Last evening, I had the pleasure of spending some time with a couple great friends - after dinner, we decided on watching the much spoken 'bout Slum Dog Millionaire!
Rush...rush...and we were at the theatre in 20 minutes flat :-)
Okay now for the part on the movie.
Open scene - little kids, slums, dirt, heaps and mountains of filth, landfills of plastic...everything that would make one look away.
This followed by gory, torture on kids. A little kids eye is scooped out with a spoon. Made you wince just reading? Watch it and you will want to throw up too.
More filth, more poverty, and more torture all entwined around a flimsy thread of a boy met girl as a child and fell in love well past into his adulthood. Co-incidence that he keeps chasing her and finds her under multiple situations?
You are wrong - coincidence doesn't end there. He goes onto a reality show and all the questions asked there have an incident and very traumatic at that, associated with it.
A good movie idea to connect it with the reality show. But, my regard for the movie and the movie maker ends right there.
I was ashamed that we had to expose this side of us to get to the Oscars! Okay now you might say that Oscars just happened like an afterthought - Hmmmm...not really. Not when the movie maker is trying to shove an artsy movie made for the main stream down your throat laced with atrocities against the most innocent - the children.
It is like showing your wounds to gain something from the other person. It's all about playing the sympathy card, to gain those brownie points.
Yeah, there is a lot of terrible things, a lot of grief and a lot of foul play out there in this world - so what?
What exactly was the movie trying to capture? A story of a kid? There are better stories. Co-incidences? Better ones present. Slums of India? Better movies exists there too.
Atrocities against kids? Was that the attempt?
In the end, I was disgusted at the attempt to make bucks and race to the awards using the raw side of our existence.
Pathetic.
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4 comments:
Hey, I don't agree with your review in that I thought it was a very good movie. But I think we should talk about this in person than on comments, because comments can be easily misunderstood. Let's discuss it sometime :)
Sure, Unawoken.
Hey, I agree too that it was a good movie.
I really loved Slumdog for many reasons. I don't think it should be taken as a social documentary. It's a fairy tale with a very gritty backdrop, but one that shows some complexity and the transforming face of India. I don't think it was done with any ulterior motives or eyes on awards (but of course none of us really knows that). I think it is a masterfully done movie in its editing and photography. I think people can be inspired to do good things after seeing this movie. One very positive thing is that despite these children's suffering, they try to survive, they keep their interest in life, they don't give up. That's what I have seen with grieving kids too. Anyway, just my $0.02.
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