EVERYONE IS A FILM CRITIC, SHAKESPEARE/ SLUMDOG AND THE ALL SEEING EYE

So I keep reading these articles that say the movie Slumdog Millionaire is glorifying slum life in India.  Or at best, critics are saying the film is trying to have it both ways and show semi realistic poverty and an upbeat fantasy with a hollywood ending.  I saw this movie last week and thought it was good but it did not blow my mind.  But I would like to take issue with some of the recent critiques of this film.  

First, let me tackle the issue of having it "both ways".  This film does try to provide some realistic notions of poverty in India.   The filmmakers used mostly uneducated Indian children who were not trained actors as the young kids in the film.  They shot the film in many of the real slums through out India.  And the scenes dealing with poverty are very harsh and shot with a hyper realistic quality. But Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog, also has made a love story fantasy with a happy Hollywood ending.  So the critics are right he is having it both ways.  But it seems to me these critics have forgot what they learned from some writer named Shakespeare in junior high english class.  Mr. Shakespeare often used fantasy elements and comic relief to temporarily relieve the tension which made later dramatic scenes feel even more intense.  He knew how to contrast and compare using these fantasy and comedy elements to put the overall story in a heightened dramatic context.

And even though this film is a fictional fantasy with a happy ending it is not a typical hollywood happy ending.  Because one can not help but see how luck plays a part in these peoples lives.  And many critics might see that as glorifying slum life because it down plays the reality of what becomes of most people in poverty.  But that is the point.  Danny Boyle is pointing out that these kids, while strong are also lucky.  They survived, they had the integrity and dumb ass luck to make it to adulthood.  Because lets face it, one's life is often set by good or bad luck.  If you are born in the slums of India or the famine regions of Africa, that might just be bad luck.  I was born in a country where I have never known a day of starvation. Sure, we have our problems in the U.S. of A. but I feel I had good dumb ass luck of being born here.  So these kids having some good luck in this fictional film with so many harsh scenes shows how luck; good or bad plays in a person's life.  

There are many scenes of luck and many scenes of struggling through the worst of man's inhumanity towards man in this film, if the critics can not see how they heighten each other, they might want to retake that junior high english class.

 

And let me says this, all film is fictional even if based on real events.  Even the most realistic documentaries are fictional works of art. Someone decides what to shoot, how to film it and how to edit it.  All these are biased acts.  If you want realism, travel to the place and have your own experience.  Cinema is an art form, not a perfect all seeing eye.  

Now there are filmmakers who try to capture reality or a feeling of reality as close as possible.  Which leads me to the filmmaker which is best at this, Stan Brakhage. But in good cliff hanger fashion; I will talk about Stan Brakhage in my next post.  THE END.