Cinema verité

In an article titled “Slumdog Millionaire and Eight Oscars”, the CPM mouthpiece hails Danny Boyle’s Oscar winning film and terms it “truly classic in terms of cinematic merit — script, cinematography, music score, sound and riveting performances.

The article takes political digs at the present government through a cartoon featuring Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh with the words: “You deserve it! You made this film possible by turning India into a great slum in the past 60 years!”

While pointing out that it was different from popular Indian films the article states: “It indirectly shows how after the Mumbai blasts, innocent poor people were attacked by hooligans at the railway station; how the Malegaon bomb blasts carried out by Hindu chauvinist group, made poor Muslims suffer untold miseries; how hapless unemployed poor North Indians and Bihari youths had to face the onslaught of Shivsainiks in Maharashtra.”

The article also castigates those who criticised the film by saying that India was depicted in a negative light.”The armchair, ivory tower intelligentsia, which has never comes to term with real concerns is appalled”, it says.