Slumdog Millionaire - A must watch

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Yesterday I caught up with one of my close friends. He took me to his house and insisted that I watch the movie Slumdog Millionaire on his laptop. I had heard lots of good reviews about the movie and it was a good alternative that hanging out in a shopping mall. Thanks to the n number of movie download sites and the unlimited broadband connections any movie in the world is just some megabytes of download away.

What sky-rocketed my interest was the enthusiasm in my friend's face. A choosy movie watcher he would not watch just every other movie in the world. The fact that he had watched the movie thrice was a strong enough testimony for the movie. He said me before the start of the movie “If someone watches this movie and says this is your India you have to accept it.”

The movie began with a good hook a teenager being beaten up by a policeman. How could a young man from a slum win Rs 1 Crore? How could he have all the answers which the so called intellect in the society did not have? What was the secret behind his confidence and where on earth did he learn all the answers without any formal education?

Danny Boyle in some way showed certain hard but true facts about India which no other director before him had done whatever may be the reasons. The story centered around Dharavi one of the largest slums in the world. It is highly surprising that hundreds of Bollywood directors who would have passed it thousands of times in their lives never got an idea to make a movie on Dharavi

The movie had every element that form the bulk of the news items we read everyday. From the dream to escape poverty to the fight in the name of religion. Girls being forced to prostitution to children being blinded to to beg on the streets. An over expressive media to a disillusioned bunch of call centre executives, Slumdog Millionaire portrayed the dark side of India in a very convincing manner.

On the technical aspect of the movie, one word can describe it 'brilliant'. The cinematography was excellent showing the slums like no other Bollywood movie had done before. The real game was however played at the editing table with the juxtapositioning of the shots. It was a movie edited with a documentary's precision, The editor Chris Dickens might have done the editing of his life.

In the end my friend just asked “If this is not a movie what is?” Being argumentative in nature I don't nod my head very often but this time I did it not reluctantly but as a gesture of agreement. Secondly I agreed to the statement he had made before the start of the movie. The only thing I can say to the director Danny Boyle is 'thanks a lot' for your masterpiece.