Slumdog Millionaire

Although I have not finished many books recently (I have started plenty though), I have been watching my Netflix movies quite regularly. I moved some of the newer releases up on my list, but I have not been impressed with most of the newer movies that I have watched. This week, I did watch one that is worth writing about.

I was nervous about watching Slumdog Millionaire because of all of the hype. However, it was a decent movie despite being difficult to watch. I do not know much about India except that it has the reputation of being dirty, they have a caste system, it is mostly Hindu and Muslim, and Christians are persecuted there. And they have a ton of dialects which can present a huge problem in car accident cases and commercial litigation in the US involving persons who are Indian and speak obscure dialects (speaking from experience). Before this movie, that would describe the extent of my knowledge about India.

The movie is disturbing on many levels, which is what makes it hard to watch. Also, I am not a fan of skipping around to different time periods, although I did eventually like how the boy's life was split into how he knew the answers to particular questions. For the first twenty or so minutes, I am not liking all the skipping around though. The movie left me wondering at the end about how close to reality that the movie is. Sometimes I worry about Hollywood sensationalizing something just to get a point across, and at times I felt that was being done in this movie, but I know that things like what are depicted in the movie are going on around the world. It is because of our tendency to be ignorant or to ignore the plight of the impoverished around the world that I think the movie is worth seeing. It is difficult to watch children forced to survive because of lack of care or protection in society, but that is going on all over the world. It is difficult to see corrupt police officers, genocide (even if it was just attacks on a particular caste), child exploitation, street gangs, and lack of government protection for the people. I thought the movie did a good job of weaving all of those things together into one story.

I do have several complaints about the production of the movie. The subtitles when the Indian dialect was translated for you were VERY difficult to read. The words were not big enough and too often blended in with the particular background of a scene. Plus, they were all over the place so you did not know where to focus your eyes, and they went away too quick. I am a quick reader, but once I would find the subtitles on the screen, they were gone. Also, at the end of the movie, there is an awkward dance scene like what you would see in High School Musical or something of that nature. Given the seriousness of the movie, the dance scene seemed very out of place. I am sure that there is a reason there was a dance scene there, but that did not seem to translate into the American movie.

I have heard rumors that the filmmakers used actual children from the lower castes and that those children have now returned back to the living conditions that they were in prior to the making of the movie. I hope that those rumors are not true since the whole movie seemed to be a celebration of an unlikely rags to riches story. If they are true, the filmmakers are hypocrites (in my opinion) since the whole movie seems to be pointing out the injustice associated with being unfortunate enough to be a member of the lower caste. Despite those things, the acting was pretty good and the child actors especially seemed like naturals.

Overall, I would recommend the movie if for not other reason than the fact that it was enlightening.