Wish You Were Here

Rating: 9/10 (21 February 2009)

Sunday of Oscars means Friday of Oscar-nominated films coming finally to the theaters here in Mexico City certainly. Actually this last week has the first day of the FICCO (Festival International de Cine Contemporaneo de la Ciudad de Mexico), certainly a chance to see very interesting films (The Wrestler, Maradona by Kusturica (which I'm going to see this same night, for free, at the Zocalo for the first time on the big screen since I already saw it a couple of times on DVD), Waltz with Bashir, Bob Marley: Exodus 77, The Good, the Bad, the Weird are some of those that I don't want to miss), certainly I'm glad it began and it began precisely with a film that the Academy nominated for Best Picture, it began with Milk.
And I missed the chance to see Milk on the big screen before the "big night" (it will be released during the first days of March). Yesterday I had planned to see my first film of the FICCO yet Slumdog Millionaire came finally yesterday to Mexico City so is very very probable that tomorrow I will be watching the Oscars after seeing only two of the five pictures that are "fighting" for the big prize of the night (Benjamin Button being the other) yet after seeing what for most is going to be the winner of the night, certainly this one that was my fifth encounter with a Danny Boyle film and if not a perfect one sure it is a great film.
Is a surprise to see a normal boy enduring a torture by some police men, certainly they want that the boy, who is our main character and who is played by Dev Patel, Tanay Chheda and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Jamal Malik talk but they will end saying something like "he's a tough guy". So we go back to see that certainly Jamal during his childhood had no other chance but to fight for his life. This is absolutely my favourite part, when Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Tanay Chheda are Jamal, the City of God. Realistic, we have who is apparently nothing but a hero, he sees street children and he comes with a tasty Coca-Cola for the heat, for them he must be good since he allow them to eat a little more, these are just children, many but certainly we known Jamal, Jamal's elder brother Salim (played by Madhur Mitta, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) and Latika (played by Freida Pinto, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar and Rubina Ali).
Very early in the picture we see that of the two brothers one is more of a Zé Pequeno and the other is more of a Buscapé, and we see moments of happiness yet very tragic moments that become more tragic for the boys because they can't do anything, they are just there trying to get by day by day so when that mentioned hero comes their life has a little light, they don't have to worry for food, they have their minds in other stuff that is different from the stuff that is in the mind of the hero. So we now very well since the beginning both Jamal and Salim, we know that if it depend only on him Salim would have never return to Mumbai, after all they found something completely different, something more like the heaven of their heads, I guess seeing the Taj Mahal is more than impressive.
But also we know that Jamal's heart is only for one girl, this is a love story, a magical one, why Jamal was that tough? We have realistic answers, a realistic background, powerful part. Why Jamal knew all the answers when he was on the Indian TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" if he never had a formal education, if he was just a slumdog? He certainly not cheated, for the police men was not too complicated to find that after Jamal talked about those moments of his past that came to his mind that night when he was on the TV show. Here the point, the most "love moment": when Jamal, during the second night on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", is only one question away of the 20 million rupees he uses one of those lifelines, he doesn't know the answer, we know that when he says that on TV he is not lying, he marks the only telephone number he knows, his brother's, yet we know where is that cell phone, time to a dramatic little moment before he hear her voice, now the answer is not important, even if so she can't give it but he after all came to that show not for the money. So let's dance, why? it is writtenin the script.