Slumdog Millionaire3

By Nurul Ain Muzlan Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Director, Best Cinematography – these are just some of the Oscar awards clinched by the engross­ing, vibrant and mov­ing Slumdog Millionaire. Rated 8.5 out 10 stars and 94% by the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes respec­tively, it is appar­ent that this movie ought to be one of 2009’s “must-watch”. Slumdog Millionaire is directed by Danny Boyle based on a novel ‘Q & A’ by Vikas Swarup. It tells a story of an 18-year-old orphan, Jamal Malik, who grew in the slums of Mumbai. Witnessed by the whole nation, he answered every ques­tion on India’s “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” with ease. A ques­tion away from win­ning 20 mil­lion rupees, the police arrested him in sus­pi­cion of cheat­ing. After all, what does a chai­walla (tea ven­dor) and a slum boy pos­si­bly know? Despite going through harsh tor­tures to make him admit his deceive, Jamal con­tin­ued to per­se­vere to prove his inno­cence. Watching back the record­ing of the show, he began to unfold how his life story allowed him to answer the appar­ently impos­si­ble ques­tions with­out much thought. But, mys­tery has it as he has no inten­tion of get­ting richer by enter­ing the com­pe­ti­tion. So, to find out the rea­son why, the Inspector and the nation tuned in to the show when Jamal returns to answer the last ques­tion. And there they have it — it’s a mat­ter of love. The film begins uniquely by show­ing a multiple-choice ques­tion super­im­posed against Jamal being tor­tured by a police offi­cer. What I do not like about this is that it allows the audi­ence to fore­shadow the sto­ry­line. However, the tor­ment acts as a gim­mick to the tone of the film – omi­nous and dark, but as it goes on, it turns out oth­er­wise as it inter­min­gle with humor, sus­pense and action. This immerses the audience’s atten­tion and anx­ious­ness to know what is actu­ally hap­pen­ing in the movie. In addi­tion, films with sto­ry­line that involve poor peo­ple who got rich in the end are already cliché, yet, the blend of dif­fer­ent gen­res – fam­ily, gang­ster and action – that makes the film eclec­tic and brings every­thing to a thrilling jour­ney. Watching this film makes you feel like a roller coaster ride; grip­ping in the begin­ning, yet enter­tain­ing at the end. You may even want to go for a sec­ond ride. The tech­ni­cal aspects used in Slumdog Millionaire are notable and they are prob­a­bly the rea­son why this movie bagged the Oscar awards. It is out­stand­ing through the fusion of its cin­e­matog­ra­phy and the edit­ing. For instance, in the begin­ning sequence, as the host of the show and Jamal are intro­duced, we only got a clear look at them briefly through the light­ing, which alter­nate from sil­hou­ette to side light­ing of them. As the scene lit up, it shows a close-up of Jamal’s ner­vous face as he was brought onto the stage and a bird’s eye view of the set. It gives us an over­whelm­ing sus­pense on whether this boy is ready to be in this show, let alone get through the first ques­tion. When the host of the show hit his face, the shot is cut to a scene at a police ques­tion, where Jamal was cru­elly inter­ro­gated and given a tight slap too. The action and the edit­ing helps to tran­sit the change of scene smoothly, yet the audi­ence still can under­stand what is going on. The way the sequence are edited and arranged, which alter­nate between the game show and Jamal’s life story, not only por­trays how he actu­ally know the answers to the ques­tion, but it also allows us to see sev­eral sto­ries con­cur­rently; the piti­ful state of poverty, his rela­tion­ship with his brother, Salim, the temp­ta­tion and dan­ger of com­mit­ting crime and the fast mod­ern­iza­tion of India. It also allows us to explore the traits of char­ac­ter in the movie. This way, it brings an oth­er­wise clichéd love story to a whole new alti­tude. So instead of approach­ing a plain tech­nique of alter­nat­ing scenes of the game and his life like a ‘ping pong’ match, the mix­ture of sto­ries and diverse gen­res bring the audience’s emo­tion to dif­fer­ent lev­els, keep­ing them cap­ti­vated through­out the movie. Set in the slums of Mumbai, the mise-en-scene shows the piti­ful con­di­tion of the sur­round­ings.  It gen­er­ally uses dull-coloured set­ting and low-key light­ing to set the sad­den­ing mood towards the state of poverty. Each scene mostly begins with a wide shot to that enables us to see clearly how bad the sit­u­a­tion was. Still, the kids are still able to enjoy life and live hap­pily, which lets the audi­ence to feel a mix­ture of feel­ings as they watch the movie. Furthermore, the fre­quent use of fast-pace edit­ing and kinetic cam­era move­ment, such as the chas­ing scene between the police and the kids at the slums in the begin­ning adds to this blend of emo­tions. The use of music also helps to arouse ten­sion to the action. The theme music of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is enough to set your adren­a­lin rush­ing as we wit­ness Jamal in the hot seat of the show. During the chas­ing scene at the begin­ning and also when Jamal and Salim are escap­ing from the child traf­fick­ers, fast, upbeat music increase the sus­pense and atten­tion. However, the dance sequence at the end was awk­ward. It prob­a­bly serves a pur­pose to add to the Bollywood theme, but I think it’s unnec­es­sary even though it enhances the happy end­ing. The actors in this film are mostly non-professional, yet, their per­for­mance are remark­able indeed. The promi­nent ones are the young Jamal and Salim, acted by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail respec­tively. Even though both of them are as cute as cup­cake, they did a great job by show­ing us how their life expe­ri­ences will lead to how they grow up to be; the young Salim, being the elder one, as an aggres­sive and dom­i­nat­ing boy while young Jamal as a gen­tle and smarter one. Being the lead actor, Dev Patel also did a good job. The first time we see him, we get the impres­sion of him as a loser and timid per­son, but as the movie pro­gresses, our per­cep­tion of him changes as he becomes a hero in the end, which shows his ver­sa­til­ity. Even though hold­ing a minor role in the movie, Irfan Khan did a notable job being the police offi­cer. He did not have to use much facial expres­sion or action to show the firm­ness of his char­ac­ter, but we can cer­tainly engage with the idea of him being an antag­o­nist. It comes from the stare of his eyes. The same goes for Anil Kapoor who acted as the host of “Who Wats to be a Millionaire”. He was able to show his enig­matic char­ac­ter, being all friendly and cheery at a point and then show­ing his dark side on another. All in all, I think Danny Boyle and his crew did a com­mend­able job in mak­ing this film. They didn’t make it as just another ‘East Meets West’ themed movie, but they told the story in the exclu­sive way as pos­si­ble, break­ing up the story by alter­nat­ing between then and now that could oth­er­wise been told in a chrono­log­i­cal order. It also imparted a mes­sage that we should not under­es­ti­mate our expe­ri­ence, which makes us all dif­fer­ent and unique. After all, quot­ing from John Legend, “Experience is a great teacher”. I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars. Slumdog Millionaire – an enter­tain­ing mas­ter­piece for every­one to enjoy!