‘Slumdog’ a movie worth eight Oscar wins
Starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto
Danny Boyle creates a beautiful movie out of the grittiest of
worlds in
”
Slumdog Millionaire.
”
The movie cleaned up at the Oscars recently with eight wins and
unlike many winners where I’ve wondered what the Academy members
saw that I didn’t,
”
Slumdog
”
deserves the accolades.
‘Slumdog’ a movie worth eight Oscar wins
Starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto
Danny Boyle creates a beautiful movie out of the grittiest of worlds in “Slumdog Millionaire.” The movie cleaned up at the Oscars recently with eight wins and unlike many winners where I’ve wondered what the Academy members saw that I didn’t, “Slumdog” deserves the accolades.
The movie won for everything from best director to best cinematography to best sound editing. In most movies some part of the product doesn’t quite work when it gets to movie screens. Maybe the soundtrack is too jarring or the dialogue is stilted or the cameraman cut away from scenes just a little too soon. But “Slumdog Millionaire” makes all the pieces work together in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time.
It is easy to draw parallels between Boyle’s critical darling and an earlier work of his that embodied just as gritty a world. In 1996, Boyle directed “Trainspotting,” a movie based on Irvine Welsh’s novel about a group of heroin addicts living in Scotland. In both movies, pivotal scenes are filmed on trains or in train stations. In both, one of the first scenes is of the main characters on the run from authorities. The music in the movies moves the plot along almost as much as the dialogue in both. And there are disturbing scenes dealing with toilets in both. Boyle chooses to include the ugly scenes – addicts shooting up in “Trainspotting” and children living in squalor in “Slumdog Millionaire.”
But that may be where the similarities end because “Trainspotting,” though there are a few moments of beauty, is a movie that is meant to turn the stomach while “Slumdog Millionaire” is a fairy tale.
“Slumdog Millionaire” starts with Jamal (Dev Patel) at a police station under interrogation. It is unclear at first what his offense might be, given the extreme torture methods that are used on him. Jamal is a contestant on a game show in India, a version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and the game show host suspects the young man has cheated his way to 10 million rupees. The police are interrogating him to find out how he did it.
And so goes the story of a young orphan who grew up on the streets of Mumbai. The movie folds back and forth on itself from the present to the past, and the movie is engaging enough that it hardly seems long enough by the end of the movie. As Jamal explains to the police officer how he came to know so many of the answers on the game show, he reveals the story of his life in bits and pieces.
As a young boy Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) and his brother Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) are left orphaned when their mother is murdered after an attack on Muslims living in the city. Out of every tragedy or triumph in Jamal’s life, he learns the answer to one of the questions that will decide his fate on the game show.
The boys run and escape with their lives during the attack, with a young girl in tow. The boys find shelter in an abandoned rail car near the airport, but Salim does not want the little girl to stay with them. Jamal insists, and Latika (Rubiana Ali plays the youngest Latika and Freida Pinto plays the adult one) becomes part of their world. The three live on collecting recyclable products in the trash heap where they often sleep until a man from an orphanage rounds them up. Of course, the man is not kind-hearted and he has plans for turning the children into moneymakers.
When the boys become separated from Latika, Salim tries to forge a life for them from scamming tourists. Jamal cannot forget Latika, however, and is constantly drawn back to search for her even when he knows it puts his own life in jeopardy. It is a desire to find Latika that eventually leads him to the game show and that seals his fate to hers forever.
Again, the cinematography is masterful. There are wide shots of the slums where the children live – and yes, people really do live in those conditions – and there are intimate close-ups of Jamal while he is being tortured. The film is even colored in ways to set the emotion of the scenes. The interrogation scenes are washed out with a yellow glare, while a scene where Latika and Jamal reunite is bright and colorful. But more than that the music is used to draw along the action. I predict that despite the Indian-influenced soundtrack the music is likely to see a lot of downloads on iTunes. When music really works in a movie, we forget that it had an existence outside of the film. At least that is the way it is for me with many of the songs from “Trainspotting.” Every time I hear Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” it brings me back to Renton’s (Ewan McGregor’s) overdose.
“Slumdog Millionaire” has been given a second run since winning its Oscars and I recommend seeing it in a theater to get the full experience of the film.
