Very disappointing, after all the hype!

Rating: 5/10 (27 January 2009)

Many people are being subconsciously bullied by the media hype to actually like the film, fuelled further by the silly Oscar orgy of ten nominations. Why don't we - Indians- have the guts to speak out about what we actually think or feel about the film, now that the disappointment over the film is growing? It is an absolutely average film. Apart from being obviously shallow, there is nothing of much worth in the film. It needs an idiot to believe that a slum child in Bombay talks with the British body language of Dev Patel. All the actors are so mediocre, I don't even understand what the hype is about the 'great acting'. This must be one of A. R. Rehman's most unimpressive musical scores and it is a sad irony of fate that he would be nominated for the Oscar for this one! By now he should have received 20 of them if this is the benchmark for Oscars! The screenplay is so full of loopholes and the dance at the end of the film is so badly choreographed that it would have been lambasted if it was made by an Indian director. Actually the dance at the end sticks out of the film like a sore thumb. It does not ever grow out of any context. If western audiences can appreciate and actually patronise something so illogical and outrageous, their general contempt for 'Bollywood' cinema now seems a case of moral hypocrisy because the film is made totally in the Bollywood style with every possible form of illogical excess. There is not a second in the film that touches me emotionally or can even be considered as quality cinema. It is indeed a heady mix of the worst variety of third world poverty, an internationally successful TV show, a rags-to-riches story and vintage Indian exotica. Even the geography is all wrong! It is interesting that when the kid falls off the train and the dust settles around him, he finds that he has landed right in front of the Taj Mahal. Any one who has been to the Taj would know that there is no railway line in its vicinity to give that cinematic view of India's most well-know icon seen through a sea of trash. I am not even talking about the display of poverty in the film which is a bit more complicated issue. We know that contention - we must not wash our dirty linen in public - has come from the most conservative quarters in the entire history of cinema, whether it was Italian neorealism or Bunuel's 'Los Olvidados', Ray's 'Pather Panchali' or even the more recent 'Salaam Bombay' and 'City of God'. A filmmaker has every right to explore whatever he wants. The real contentious and political issue is the reception to image-making of realities that are not lived through personal experience. Amitabh Bachchan's response can be perfectly understood in the light of the fact that he has been particularly made into the villain of the film, which was unnecessary in any case. (There is absolutely no ambiguity in the film whether Anil Kapur is playing AB.) So his reactions and critique may have grown out of a personal sense of hurt but then we need to ask ourselves, why do we like 'City of God' so much? Are we getting some perverse joy out of consuming the poverty of the Brazilian favelas or are we just captivated by its palpable characters and plot situations? It needs a depraved mind to even believe that anyone would spend their money to enjoy seeing poverty. So, ultimately the question is whether 'Slumdog Millionaire' qualifies as a film of high quality. I seriously doubt that. At best, it is a well-made Hindi film. What needs to be understood is the myth around it and the mind-boggling hype about hype itself. How did that happen? That would be more revealing about the world around us than the film's laughable claim to authenticity, that too legitimised by gullible Indians themselves.