slumdog millionaire

won 5 awards at the people's choice last night and after seeing it tonight I can see why. I was totally entralled during the whole thing. It's set in Mumbai, India and I am just so in love with all the colours of that country. So it's a beautiful movie, visually. But the story is just so fresh and captured me completely. It took me about 10/20 minutes to fully get into but after that I fell wholly in love with it. I didn't know anything about it before I went to see it except that it starts with the main character Jamal appearing on the hindu version of who wants to be a millionaire. I like that I went into the cinema not knowing what I was going to see, or how the story was going to enfold. With the media today it's hard to escape. But I like the old fashioned mystery so won't give anything away! All I'll say is that this film is a wonderful start to '09. It is clever, beautiful, honest, full. Everything a film should be. Eugh, looking at the other films that just came out, 'bride wars', 'yes man' thay just look so recycled and boring. I am so glad that my eyes got to see something fresh and thought provoking without being overly mushy. GO SEE IT! I'd love to know what others thought

 

I just watched it today.

I kinda sort of expecting an overly dry intellectual analysis of the hardships of life in Mumbai.

That's not what I got at all. It was a story of lust for life and passion. Boldness pushing through insurmountable odds and triumphing. It somehow made 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' the most captivating thing I've seen in years.

Jamal is a perfect hero, realistic and innocent.

I think I'll collect my thoughts on this and come back. I think this is one of my top ten favorite movies now.

 

i really want to see it. will have to rent it out when its realised. looks good and the reviews are all great.

 

Slumdog Millionaire
Movie Blurb by Shale
February 15, 2009

This movie has been playing for about a month here, likely will run out in theater by next week so this blurb will have no relevance, except if you are planning to get it on DVD someday. It looked like one of those heavy dramas about wretched living conditions in India slums so I opted for more escapist fare.

However, my friend Tony in Wales recommended it to me last Thursday: "I watched the movie Slumdog Millionaire the other night. Great feel good film. It really lifted my spirits ... Got loads of BAFTA awards and is tipped to do the same at your Oscars." So, today I finally made a point to see it.

It eventually is feel good and has a few lighter moments throughout but it still shows wretched living conditions in the slums of Mumbai and some of the more disturbing aspects of organized crime, religious intolerance and police brutality in India.

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is the anomaly, a chai walla who grew up in the slums of Mumbai, entered the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and surprises everyone by answering all questions to the final win.

The Gameshow


He upsets the gameshow host, Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor) who tells the police he was cheating. Early on we see hideous torture at the hands of the police under the orders of the Police Inspector (Irrfan Khan).

Jamal's knowledge of the questions is revealed in his life experience in flashback where key moments gave him an answer. A life of abject poverty, exploitation, running away, surviving and growing up with the fantasy that he, his brother Salim (adult played by Madhur Mittal)and friend Latika (adult played by Freida Pinto) are the Three Musketeers.

Three Musketeers



Salim, the older brother gets involved with organized crime, which has taken Latika as a slave. Jamal feels protective of Latika and on several occasions tries to free her.

Lifelong Love


As said, it eventually becomes a feel good movie, but it is an arduous and brutal trip to get there. It was enjoyable and I would recommend this if you like such drama. Of course part of the fascination for me was having been in Bombay (now Mumbai) and Agra in the 1970s.

While this movie is set in those locations at the current time, not much changes in India very quickly. I never saw the slums as portrayed in this film, always being in downtown Bombay by the India Gate and tourist places. But I did see the beggars and swarms of begging street urchins that were the characters in this movie. I also saw how the Indian police didn't have to clog their courts and jails with miscreants, just giving them a whack with the stick and sending them on their way. So, this movie might be believable. It got the ire of all sorts of social agencies in India and a few Hindu religious groups, although the deadly religious intolerance in that country makes the news all too often with both Muslim and Hindu as murderous monsters.

BTW, one final warning for the easily grossed out. There is a public outhouse scene early in the movie that may make you grimace. When I was in India, ppl didn't really need outhouses in the isolated parts of the countryside, just squatting on the side of the road or in a field and doing their business. So, I don't know if that scene is entirely accurate, but unbelievably gross it is.

 

just saw it this past weekend and it is so good. was way beyond any expectations.
now i really need to read the book as soon as i'm able.
and that second picture above..."the three musketeers"...is sweet. (i added it to my wallpaper file.)

 

Its the best movie Ive seen in a while....and I seen some good ones..I loved the soundtrack of Slumdog too

 

yah M.I.A is amazing

 

i was bored. slow storytelling. love story prince-princess style with a touch of "crude mombai reality" (of what Hollywood thinks that is)
a hero that can't act.
story very similar to cuidad de dios.

TO ME, it's recycled shit.

 

I guess one movie does not fit all. Anyhow, as said in my above blurb, I can't attest to the accuracy of the Mumbai reality, but I saw a feature on the news about those slums and the dwellers within. Apparently it is real with ppl struggling to get out and make a better life. Studying textbooks in a makeshift shack.

I talked to the Sikh who runs the newstand and he said he was recently in India. He mentioned not much has changed and that there are the very rich and the very impoverished - pretty much as this movie showed.

I also asked him about the suffic "Ji" on the end of names, say for instance "Gandi-ji." He said it is a term of respect when you add it to a name. The reason I asked him was because in the movie the gameshow host kept refering to "computer-ji" for the answers.

 

i hear ya shale...

it's just a recurrent feeling of mine... to look at pictures like this

that i know it's for promotional reason and it's part of the story but
i just CANT take the fact that this is practically real and we are entertaining ourselves with an artistic point of view of a shattered reality.

so you can imagine how a whole movie about this can make me feel...

 

this movie may be entertaining but it is harrowing. my mother was in Mombai just before it came out and watched it when she came home. She found it very hard to watch. It may have been a little too much of an artistic take. But I think these films should be seen. It touched me and now I am planning a trip to India once my son is old enough to be left w/ his grandparents. I thought the child actors were just amazing too.

 

www.axxofreak.wordpress.com
www.axxofreak.wordpress.com
www.axxofreak.wordpress.com

 

And those links are related to Slumdog Millionaire, how?

 

when i look at a picture like this, it inspires me. it takes me right back to the time i spent there and reminds me that in spite of the trials and tribulations that life dishes out, they are not so bad when compared to others' lives. it reminds me that what i saw in this movie is for real...adapted from a novel based on the horrific reality these children face every day. it reminds me to tap into that pure, raw, innocent energy that kept these 3 musketeers' lives together.

and yes, fully agree that the soundtrack is awesome. as is M.I.A.'s song.

"computer ji" was the one of the rare lolz moment.

the story this movie tells could have been told from the perspective of most any third world country. the fact that it was india is just an extra added bonus!

~ going to see it again this weekend

 

how's it feel that that movie sucked?

don't reply now.

talk to me in 50

 

Slumdog Millionaire
Update Blurb by Shale
February 20, 2009

It wasn't all fake. Two of the urchins in the movie were actually from the slums Bandra outside of Mumbai.

There were nine actors who played the three central characters in the movie thru three periods of their life. And, two of the actors who played the youngest children were discovered in the slums by director Danny Boyle.

Azharuddin Ismail (10 years old) played the young Jamal's brother Salim.


Rubina Ali (9 years old) played the young Latika.



Well, their world has totally expanded beyond what most would have expected. Because the movie has done so well at the box office, gotten such good press and has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, these kids are going to the Oscars. Yep, from the slums of Mumbai to LA. (Uh, I assume that is a good thing)

Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, who played the young Jamal lives in India but is not from the slums.


All cynicism aside, let's just think of the great experience that these kids from the slums will now have. Having never been out of India, never flown on a plane, never seen much more than their own destitute lives they will now see things to expand their imagination. Quite possibly it may positively affect their lives. If not, they will at least have a fun ride for a while. What more can a kid ask for?

OK, a little more of my vast background. I was raised in North St. Louis in a run down neighborhood that was built in the 19th Century and still had outhouses in the back yards. While I never went without necessities and never went hungry (like my mother did in her childhood) much of my early life was probably poor by many standards. However, I never knew it. Kids just accept the life they have and try to have fun with it. Seeing the waifs in this movie makes me connect a little with the gang of cousins and friends in our poor but interesting neighborhood.

Shale with sister and cousins at home in North St. Louis - 1951



It wasn't until I got older and saw more of the world that I had any reference to compare. Hope these kids can cope with returning home after seeing so much more of the world. While at last report they were still living in the slum, they did receive a good amount of money (by Indian economy) for their roles in the movie and a trust fund has been set up for their education. But for now, they are kids having fun.

 

I just finished downloading it and will watch it tonight, with my sister.

I'm looking forward to it immensely.

 

Wow---I gotta see this----is it anything like Salaam Bombay? (except for what appears to be a happy outcome???)

I was really touched by Salaam Bombay---I lived in the Philippines for quite a while, and got to know some of the street kids outside of my Manila subdivision. The story of Salaam Bombay could have been any one of those kids----except the drug of choice was glue not 'Brown.' I tried to help them as best I could---we'd give them food, not so much money since that would mostly go for more glue-----------but my heart went out for those kids, and all the kids I saw all over manila.

 

the fact this movie had won 2 oscars, best movie and director, only reflects the kind of corny sentimental emptiness Hollywood believes is the way to represent life or whatever the think they are doing.

i feel sorry for the future of this art.

 

This movie better be damn good, it's won bloody every category it was in.