The funniest sequence in a film EVER?

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2008)

No sequence in this powerful movie shows the slumdog life better than the outhouse sequence: A way of life totally shocking to a middle class American who enjoys indoor plumbing. Slumdog life requires lining up to take a crap at an outhouse guarded by a child who collects a small fee. With our hero sitting on the pot, a "customer" shows complete frustration in having to wait to crap and goes to another outhouse. Our hero has caused the loss of a fee. The next events are played out in a shocking way: The pop celebrity arriving by a helicopter which causes thousands of people around the outhouses to run off seeking his autograph. Our hero, punished for the loss of a customer, is unable to exit due to a door pinned under the entry doorknob by the child guard. So he slips out of the outhouse in the only way possible, down the hole into the pool of crap. Covered in crap, he runs right up to the celebrity. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, with excrement covering his entire body, the masses of people part to let him approach unbarred by any brave soul. He gets the sought after autograph. This scene made me howl in laughter. A laughter I have never experienced quite so in a movie- uncontrollable. A laughter I will always remember. The funniest sequence in a film Ever! But what makes this movie a 10 out of 10 is the purposefulness behind this extraordinary scene. The celebrity/pop culture transforms the direst conditions into something that can be forgotten and endured. Our hero wants the autograph of the celebrity so badly, he'll swim in a sea of excrement to get it. This film is a remarkable critique of capitalism, greed, and the inhumanity of human kind. But it also shows that the consumer/celebrity culture can be a kind of opium of the masses. Slumdog Millionaire is thought provoking, shockingly sad and powerfully hilarious. THANK YOU Danny Boyle.