This film tells us in a series of flashbacks the exciting biography of the life of a young man called Jamal.

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2014)

A slumdog turns into a millionaire
The film 'Slumdog Millionaire' is an exciting biography of the life of a young man named Jamal and his brother Salim. Their mother was killed during an attack on their slum by a Buddhist group from another slum. The father of these boys is out of the picture, so the two brothers have to take care of each other. The story starts with Jamal who enters a quiz show, not with the intention of actually winning the money, but in the hope that Latika, his big love, is watching. Jamal knows almost all the answers to the questions he is being asked in the quiz show by an experience he has made in his past. The flashbacks very well tell us the story of Jamal's terrible youth.
Slumdog millionaire is a thought-provoking and memorable movie. Sometimes it is rather difficult to catch the speeding plot. Nevertheless, the movie still gives a very interesting experience. In the movie, many things happen after another. When the main character tries to find a resolution to the questions, lots of emotions and knowledge is being released to the viewer. Lots of memories surpass one another. Therefore it takes a lot of concentration and thinking to understand the movie. Furthermore, it is rather a plus point that the producers placed the film in a kind of action, drama and romance genre. Doing so, it made the movie enjoyable for both genders and almost all ages. There are a few exclusive scenes which may be too aggressive for little children. One of such scenes is when a child kidnapper blinds children by pouring acidic substances into the children's eye sockets. Nevertheless, combining different genres can be, in some aspects, very useful because it makes the movie stand out of all the others. There are scenes that contain resentment, fright, love and action. The different moods have been cleverly combined, which makes it easy for the viewer to understand the outline of the movie. In the scene where the main character's mother dies you can sense the children's fright and you can seemingly see the action that follows. Flashbacks make the movie more enticing. In the film there are many situations where his memories pass by. Each of these flashbacks gives the viewer a frisson, a brief moment of emotional excitement. An example of that would have been right at the climax of the film, when action and love cross paths. The main character's brother sacrifices himself for the escape of his brother's love. Now that the two love birds have been reunified, the movie tops with a happy ending.
First of all, the director said in an interview that the colour yellow is almost always being worn by Latika, because it is the resemblance of hope and positivity. In my opinion this worked out quite well, it's not too obvious yet present. Since yellow is an extremely bright and eye- catching colour you immediately notice Latika when she's present in a scene. However, there may be said that she doesn't always wear yellow. Although this statement is true, there is another explanation for that. When she wears cream, the colour cream symbolises the hope and positivity being bleached out of her soul just as her clothes. She's feeling quite depressed in this stage of the movie because she is being semi- imprisoned by Salim. Therefore you can say that colour is part of the movie. I think that the yellow aspect is only really noticeable when you take a deeper look into the movie. Thereby there has also been made use of saturation, for example when Salim and Jamal are in their shelter for the rain after the attack, because Jamal sees Latika and the intensity of the colours is very low. This low intensity makes the audience feel quite sad. However, contrary to this, there has been made use of a very high intensity at the last scene at the train station when Jamal sees Latika again. Those bright colours made the mood very happy. Nonetheless, there has been made use of more types of techniques. One of them is chiaroscuro, the difference between light and shade adds a lot of tension and emphasises the emotions. One of the many examples of this technique is when Jamal calls Latika during the show. In the film there is one shot in particular which combines three-point lighting with natural and artificial light and with those two combined, there is a shot which is partially inside and partially outside. So to conclude it all, colour and light play a big role in this film and therefore cannot be underestimated. I also believe that the natural light makes the scenes look more realistic and this makes the life in the slums, as being portrayed in this movie, more reliable. Also because these shots are actually taken in the slums and not in a studio.
The movie fulfils all the viewer's desires. The most enjoyable parts are full of emotion and thrill, such as the parts where Jamal is being chased or when he sees his love again. The movie seems to be enjoyable for male and female and for many different age categories. The movie is very exciting and enjoyable. I do recommend watching this movie, as it simply doesn't get boring. Light and colour have been combined splendidly, and provokes the mood and atmosphere of the entire movie. The movie picks the viewer up, puts them back down and leaves them full of frisson, excitement and joy.