Read the related article… Does Slumdog Millionaire depict REAL India?
Induscreed said…
If this movie was truthful and indicative of the ‘reality’ in India, it should have struck a chord with the poor masses in India. And what have we seen? The movie is a dud, a failure, a bust at the Indian box office. Overhype and a clever way of promotion cannot guarantee success. People can see through it.
It mixes up the documentary and the feature film formats and ends up milking/exploiting a wider cliché of poor India. Is it good fiction? Yes. Is it closer to reality? You gotta be kidding.
Arindam Chaudhuri (India) said…
The fact is that the film’s entire narration seems like the germination of a terribly sadistic and complex mind with the sole aim of satisfying the western idea of India – and its new found growth instincts at their cost - and it is done through a combination of illogical happenings in order to show everything in a disgustingly negative vein. Not that it doesn’t exist, but it surely doesn’t exist in this fictitious manner.
Sumit Bhattacharya said…
Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor), the KBC host, is the typical villain who taunts the chaiwallah on his show; and the audience joins ,in with jeering laughter. Agreed, slum children get life's rawest deal, but not on live television.
Pearl (New Delhi, India) said…
But Slumdog is a kitschy over-simplification of poverty. Thousands live all across India in abject poverty, but they are not necessarily criminalised the way it is portrayed in the film.
Vrinda Nabar said…
Individually, some of the details are realistic enough; aspects of Mumbai's underbelly. My problem is that the movie doesn't go far enough in its treatment of them, making for a flat, somewhat questionable view. So, in Slumdog's Mumbai a poor child will leap into a pool of shit and emerge covered with it, run through a jostling mob and get close enough to a superstar to obtain an autographed picture.
Orphaned slum children switch abruptly from Hindi to speaking English in accents that cannot be faulted. A call centre employee can with impunity hand over his switchboard to a chaiwallah who is able to tap into the database within seconds and track down his brother. The host and audience of a popular television quiz show are boorishly united in humiliating a participant because he is poor. And progress means ugly skyscrapers, crime and sleaze.
Timothy (New York) said…
What I don’t understand (well, I do actually) about Slumdog and about Bollywood in general is why the stars are so fair-skinned. Why did the love interest in Slumdog become more fair-skinned as she got older? And why are so many of the Bollywood stars practically ‘white’ looking? Why hasn’t anyone said anything about this?
Being a black NY’er (I might call myself American again in the Obama age, never before), I understand the perpetuation of the ‘white is true beauty’ myth; it was just disappointing to see and ruined what I would’ve have considered a pretty darn good film.
Akash Abrol said…
One guy in my office here says that he liked the movie very much. He was laughing at the scene in which that kid jumped into the shit pond. And then he asks me is it really like this India?
I said No. I told him that Americans always project wrong image of India. Our metropolitan cities are no less than New York and Washington DC. I know there are slum areas as shown in movie, but I have seen beggars in America too... I have seen people living in boxes here also. He was convinced but he is just one guy. What about the rest of Americans. They all treat us as a Third World and we all are equally responsible for this.
IndiGirl said…
Bad things happen everywhere, but this kind of depiction is misleading - Boyle has taken every trite urban myth about the slums and brought it to life.
Sutanu Guru (India) said…
During the Taj Mahal drama, Danny Boyle even has an American slip, a $ 100 bill to Jamal because he was beaten up by an Indian driver. Now, most whites who slip dollar bills to kids in Bombay are paedophiles of the worst type, exploiting the poverty and helplessness of poor slum children to satiate their perverted sexual appetites. Many have been caught; only to be let off because of our corrupt system. If Danny Boyle was so keen on showing reality, he could have shown a couple of ‘white’ paedophiles?
Shailendra Mathur said…
Slumdog Millionaire is just an ordinary movie with glaring gaffes that wouldn’t wash with anyone, at least not in India. The most unbelievable being that Jamal reaches out to Lotika through a live TV coverage of the millionaire show. It is well known that such shows are NEVER telecast live- anywhere in the world. The logistics that go into the making of such shows simply do not allow the TV channel guys to risk a live telecast. The climax therefore, like several other things in the movie, is unadulterated Bollywood fare.
Subba Muthurangan (Naperville, United States) said…
SDM is really a negative expose of India’s poverty and extreme living condition of some. The quality of Danny’s imagination was proved when Jamal’s adventure to see Amithab Bacchan, nobody in this world can image that kind of low/cheap scene sequence.
Troy (Brisbane, Australia) said…
I've driven passed those slums and I've never seen drop dead gorgeous slum people kissing on railway platforms as trains rush by and tousle their hair beautifully. It is a cliche that uses the colour and texture of poverty for its own ends - Poverty porn.
Wali said…
White man rapes bollywood rips off the poor children of Mumbai and takes the mickey out of India. Deport all foriegn nationals and seize all assets immediately. Redistribute wealth and bury the caste system once and for all. Delete all traces of colonialism and occupy diego garcia and all of Indian ocean.
Salman Rushdie said…
.. I have problems with the story line. I find the storyline unconvincing. It just couldn’t happen… piles impossibility on impossibility.
JD said…
Also most Indian’s would not mind a Hindi movie shown largely domestic audience - that would be an attempt to perhaps wake-up the people to take some action. This is an attempt to portray the worst of a city - in a one sided view to a global audience and say – here’s what Mumbai is and build on already existing prejudices in the minds of foreigners of India as a land of poor snake charmers. That is what has hurt and that is the true reason for the outrage.
Veena Mithare (Banglore, India) said…
What does the director want to portray by showing such disgusting realities... How much of it portrays 'Real India’.
True there might be slums like that. But how much percent of the slums are as dirty as that. Shouldn’t be more that 20 % I feel. I know this for sure, coz I have been working with a slum for the past 3 years. And the reality of the other 80% slums is much different that that portrayed.
Binay said…
This is miles away from reality and the reason it is getting so much of accolades is that it shows the things about India which the people of west want to see and enjoy and finally can say after watching the movie “This is the real India".
Ninja Nurse said…
But this movie shows an India that is without any expression of justice or mercy. Every authority is corrupt and sadistic. No Indian adult shows any interest in the orphans except to beat them or horribly exploit them. The only people who object to this mistreatment are American tourists, and they come off as saps… The dog that didn’t bark is the lack of any depiction of poor people helping one another to survive.
Danny Boyle is selling the poverty
Read the section in… Does Slumdog Millionaire depict REAL India?
Rainbow shark said...
It intrigues me why the entire newsprint and electronic media would push this particular film so hard, convincing people that this shit actually smells of roses. Is it just for business or is there a more intricate part in their gameplan which we are unaware of?
Anandita Kumar (New York City, US) said…
Slumdog Millionaire is a treat for westerners cashing on the poverty in India. The film is offensive and ignorant of sensibilities.
Induscreed said…
How about child exploitation during the making of the movie? The lead child actors were paid 500GBP and 1700GBP respectively for a year’s work which is less than what an extra would make in a local movie production. The children are back where they belong- in the poverty and the squalor of their surroundings. The promised support and the trust are veiled in secrecy.
Sissoucat said…
How come they (slum children of SM) still live in slums if they were paid fairly? Can’t believe they can’t be protected from robbers by the film company until they live in their nice villa in a good Mumbai neighborhood.
As for a trust for staying in school, why not, but if they die from malnutrition or illness before they are 18, what happens to the money? Lodging them well should be a top priority - and I don’t think housing is that expensive in India. Why give millions to rich people and nothing to poor ones?
Troy (Brisbane, Australia) said…
I wonder how many slum kids could afford to see this movie and share your uplifting joyousness. Will any revenue from the film go to the slums?
Bala said…
The British subjugated Indians for a long time, and now a Brit has highlighted the biggest issue suffocating India, poverty.
Jim, Preston (UK) said…
In the West it's fashionable at the moment to read books and watch films about third world hardship I wonder if this post colonial guilt culture will extend long into the economic downturn?.
Alice Miles (London, UK) said…
Danny Boyle's film is sweeping up awards, but it's wrong to revel in the misery of India's children
Josh Tyler said…
What I saw was a cynical collection of third-world clichés sold with pretty colors and an uplifting soundtrack.
Ranjit said…
Why them, most of us ourselves don’t do anything to help out. And I don’t think either that SD is going to project the troubles of Dharavi & bring in copious aid to solve the issue. And have the producers promised a percentage of earnings for rebuilding dharavi ? I don’t know about it..
Aadesh Shrivastava said…
Mumbai has given me everything. To see the city being shown as a place of dirt filth and crime only is very humiliating.
See the trauma of Underprivileged
Read the section in… Does Slumdog Millionaire depict REAL India?
Alice Miles (London) said…
When we are suckered into enjoying scenes of absolute horror among children in slums on the other side of the world, even dubbing them comedy, we ought to question where our moral compass is pointing. Boyle's most subversive achievement may lie not in revealing the dark underbelly of India - but in revealing ours.
Sahil said…
It is really the worst of india presented in a marketable fashion. Only people who are Ignorant of the concept of Poverty can possibly enjoy this move (as an eye-opener), the rest relate to it. So the affluent would get saddned and emotionally drained by this movie while as anyone living (or having ever lived) under or around those circumstances would get disgusted.
You could pull the worst of any country in this world and make it a joy for all who cannot relate to the misery shown.
Ben (Chicago, US) said…
I think it was painful to go through the long movie. I feel they want people to laugh at the cost of little poor children. There are poor people in every country.
Andrea Miller (West Vancouver, Canada) said…
I have been so upset since seeing some of this movie...I had to leave because I couldn't watch the violence and hear people laughing about me. How could such horrid things happening to children be funny?
Jai (London) said…
I was shocked to see people laughing at jokes, two minutes after seeing a scene of absolute pain/poverty. Feel good? No.
Subba Muthurangan (Naperville, United States) said…
In our side ( Southern tip of India ), so called “fake missions” are there, they took photograph of slums in our area and send it to foreign countries by exploit our poverty to get money. But at end of day money was spent to the own interest of the “mission”. I don’t want to blame real missions who invite foreigners to India and let them make assessment about how they want to help slum people. Based on Danny’s history and his previous movies, I had to compare him with our fake mission, he did it all for money and fame!
Alice Miles (London) said…
The Mumbai Mirror dubbed it “Slum Chic”, and notes that the term “slumdog” is not widely recognised in India: “It appears to be a British invention to describe a poor Dharavi kid in a derogatory way.”
Read the article in… Does Slumdog Millionaire depict REAL India?
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