First seen at AFI Fest 2008:
On its face, Slumdog Millionaire,
this year’s little-movie-that-could and current Best Picture
frontrunner, could be mistaken for a hollow piece of filmmaking.
While no prominent critic has suggested this, it’s important to
realize that the movie is essentially made up of imagery-dense,
music-video-esque sequences; old-fashioned Dickensian themes;
and simple flashback storytelling. Juxtaposed with how complex
the film actually comes across, this fact stands as an
awe-inducing testament to just what a massive accomplishment
Slumdog Millionaire is.
In the first scenes, we meet
teenage Jamal (Dev Patel*) as he is tortured by Indian police.
Jamal has just triumphed in a winning-streak on his country’s
version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”, performing so
strongly for an uneducated once-slum-orphan that the show’s
producers and the cops think he cheated. He has done no such
thing however and, as an onscreen set of “Millionaire”-style
multiple-choice answers to the film’s narrative suggest in its
opening, Jamal’s performance may be an object of fate. As the
police play back a tape of the show and interrogate Jamal, the
viewer witnesses how jamal learned each answer in his life’s
journey from the poorest neighborhood in Mumbai to the set of a
popular television show. Jamal’s mother’s (Sanchita Couhdary)
death at the hands of Islamic extremism, his brother’s
transformation (Madhur Mittal*) from nurturer to thug following
a brutal kidnapping, and his own enduring love for
childhood-crush Latika (Freida Pinto*) are all intertwined in an
emotionally-stirring narrative that illustrates the recent
history of a headline-making country in evocative and
unflinching detail. And the movie does it all within the
aforementioned simple structure.
While I normally reject auteur
theory because film is the ultimate collaborative medium, it
would be hard to deny that director Danny Boyle, always the
engineer of cinema, is responsible for the bulk of Slumdog
Millionaire’s success. He is the hands-on anchor of every
vital element of the film, from the poignant performances of his
cast of mostly non-actors to the unbelievable camerawork done on
three cutting-edge units by DP Anthony Dod Mantle to editor
Chris Dickens’ adrenaline-pumping knack for pacing. Boyle is the
reason why the film is so brilliantly innovative, making its
straightforward structure thoughtful and welcome rather than
conventional and shrug-inducing.
Reading over the last three
paragraphs, I realize I’m skirting around the true brilliance of
the film, which is not exactly technical despite its competence
in all areas artistic. Rather, Slumdog Millionaire’s
genius rests in the way moves, how it allows the viewer to
experience the essence of India within the parameters of a
moving story and technical flourishes I’ve too-coldly discussed.
It’s hard to really describe just what a wonder the picture is
in the moment: like when M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” unexpectedly
comes on at full-blast in a jaw-dropping train-ride-sequence, or
when the Taj Mahal is intimately photographed in verite
documentary style, or when Latika’s face is shown as an
eight-frame-per-second motif to illustrate it as a figment of
Jamal’s hopeful mind. When these passages infuse to show the
hope and suffering of a nation through the universal lens of
traditional underdog-based popular-entertainment—you tell me
whether said entertainment is the show in the movie, the movie
itself, or both—Slumdog Millionaire becomes magical. It’s
an experience that holds the essence of realism and transcends
reality in the process.
Oh, and did I mention there’s an
end-credit dance sequence that far surpasses those of the
Bombastic Bollywood hits that inspired it in terms of energy,
choreography, and pure fun? Chalk that onto the list of traits
to gush about in what is one of the best films of the year.
*I have credited the oldest actor for
each character. They are portrayed by 2-3 different actors for
different ages.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 12.5.2008
Screened on:
11.7.2008 at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, CA and
11.24.2008 at Laemmle's Playhouse in Pasadena, CA.