A – I have a soft spot in my heart for India (We are planning on moving there after all)
B – Though the only Boyle film I’ve seen is 28 Days Later, because I was impressed by that film and because my favorite critics named their podcast after his breakout film Trainspotting, I had every reason to expect that Boyle would both do justice to the setting and the people and would deliver a film that works.
C – I had just returned from Mumbai and the thought of Boyle traipsing through India’s busiest city filming without permits made me feel kind of special, being that I tagged along on a tour of Mumbai while Patrick Jones( the guy in glasses) shot un-permitted B-roll for a promo video for Friendship Centre India, which is forthcoming.
I think I have realized that I would not make the best professional movie critic, because I often let my initial reaction dictate my judgment concerning a film, and numerous times I have realized that upon closer examination, I really did not like certain films as much as I thought I did. Crash, The Dark Knight, and Cloverfield are just a few of the films I liked so much initially that I did not examine them honestly. I still like all three of these films, but my initial fervor has cooled in all three cases, and I feel that were I to write reviews now, I would be able to provide a far more objective analysis.
I am afraid to issue a true review of Slumdog, then, because I had such a great time with this movie, and due to my bias for all things Indian, I think I would probably overstate my case. So, rather than deliver a full-on review, I’ll just hit the high points and make a few observations.
First, I am not sure if the credit should go primarily to Directors Danny Boyle or Loveleen Tandan, to Chris Dickens as Editor, to Anthony Dod Mantle as cinematographer, or (as is most likely the case) a combination of all four, but this movie features some phenomenal musical sequences. The cricket game that evolves into a chase scene at the film’s beginning put me there. At one point in the chase, Boyle gives us three rapid-fire overhead shots depicting the kids being chased by the policeman, each widening a bit more than the previous. It’s the type of duh-duh-duhnnn rhythm we’ve seen a billion times, but Boyle and co. use it in the middle of the chase when the kids hit a thirty or so square-foot clearing in the middle of the crowded slum, and each shot gives us a better idea of what the term “wall-to-wall” really means. The final shot in this impressive setup (I am at a loss as to how he pulled this angle off) is wide enough to see myriad tiny shacks crammed up against each other so closely that their varicolored roofs overlap, and the only people visible are our heroes and their pursuer. While this final shot works as a breathtaking visual reprieve from the clamorous chase, it also could function as a perfect snapshot to symbolize this film, which happens to be about the vastness of the world’s fastest growing nation and one boy’s improbable hope that arrests our attention.
My second observation is more trivial than anything, but it really caught me off-guard. At one point, late in the narrative, when our hero Jamal begins working at a call-center, the shot used to establish a certain building as Jamal’s workplace features a few men in uniform walking past the camera. I have not found any web buzz confirming this, but I am almost positive one of the men looks right at the camera, performs a shooing motion and says, “No cameras!” It is difficult to tell for sure due to the man’s thick accent and the quickness of the event, but it struck me because if he did say that, I just can’t help but wonder why Boyle would include this shot in the film. I knew he did some guerrilla film making, but judging from the intense planning of other setups (as above) I’m sure he had some other nice building he could have used for the call center. Or did he include this on purpose, and if so, why?
You must understand going into this movie that the filmmakers have gone out of their way to keep you off-balance. There are a number of manipulative moments and contrivances that really don’t work, but because the movie moves so fast you probably will not even notice them. This is why a truly honest criticism of the movie would require what the movie barely allows you to do: cross your arms and furrow your brows.
But, honestly, that’s okay by me. So often film snobs who enshrine classic movies are so blinded by their (our-I’ve been guilty) desire to be considered connoisseurs of film that we tend to overlook glaring problems with the classics because we’ve been told they are classics. Have you watched a Hitchcock film recently? Cross your arms and furrow your brows-you’ll be surprised how much you can nitpick on. The same is true of all the old greats-Hawks, Ford, Wilder. They were great movies, yes, but they weren’t perfect. Even so, they inspired generations of visionary directors to further expand cinema’s influence and artistry. These aspiring filmmakers sprung from our shores to those of France, Japan and even India.
In India’s case, one man who was inspired by the likes of Hawks and Ford was Satyajit Ray. He crafted subtle tales about Indian life that would never achieve the universal acclaim of a film like Slumdog Millionaire, but I believe Slumdog, like the great Westerns and noirs of classic American cinema, may have what it takes to help inspire a whole new generation of Satyajit Rays to take Indian film beyond where it is now, and that in itself, may be worth the price of production.
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