It’s probably appropriate that my first viewing of Slumdog Millionaire the Golden Globe big winner took place in the city where it was shot. It was interesting to arrive here and read in the papers that it was just “poverty porn”. After watching it I don’t buy it. It didn’t play on misery, or attempt to glorify reality. It was at times viscerally visual. It was also a fairly honest / perceptive set of “flashbacks” which if you’ve spent time in India you will have read about, seen, or heard reported on the TV. I don’t think the movie went so far as to romance the poverty and slums. It was more a movie about street smarts and some hope. It was inevitable from the beginning that it would finish on a positive note. In my book it’s a must watch. Still from an Indian perspective I can accept that it’s a Western rather than Bollywood film. There have been others in this genre and there are only going to be more. They do good at the box office.
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One aspect that I couldn’t reconcile was the public ridicule the host heaps on the protagonist, with a passive acceptance of the audience. Still they and the whole nation seem to root for him.
I have seen the Tamil version of American Idol where the judges seem to take extra effort to be gentle on the contestants and sugar coat the criticisms.
Aswath you are right the announcer was a pig. Still I plan to watch it again.
And then there’s this Guardian article (not a review) about the issue you put forward …
Slumdog Millionaire could only have been made by a westerner
Danny Boyle’s Bafta-nominated crowd-pleaser shows how blind Bollywood producers are to the reality of India