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Slumdog 1, Bollywood 0

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    • Kunal Pradhan Tags : slumdog Posted: Thursday , Jan 29, 2009 at 0151 hrs

    It is fine for our leading ladies to prance at Cannes, for our producers to party at Sundance, for our actors to present awards in Beverly Hills, but what, really, is their contribution to their art form at a time when Indians are hailed each week for scaling new heights across sectors and regions? Must our cinema only be a medium of entertainment, or should it also be a reflection of our times, thoughts and ideas? After making movies for 75 years, should it really take a Slumdog to teach us how to tell our story, using our clichés, our music, with railway-platform dances perfected by us?  

    So, in a nutshell, is the success of Slumdog really our victory as a vibrant film-watching, prolific film-making, country? Or is it our defeat? 

    kunal.pradhan@expressindia.com

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    The film almost lost the real message as compared to the novel By: Jay | 30-Jan-2009 Reply | Forward I have read the novel, Slumdog millionaire. The novel is far, far better than the movie. The movie script has been changed so much, to become politically correct and to appease a section of conservative Indian society and political authority, that it almost lost its real message. The movie is little better than a typical Hindi film but far, far short to become a masterpiece or to depict Indian society in true sense, in totality as in novel.
    SlumdogBy: Dr. D. Prithipaul | 29-Jan-2009 Reply | Forward K.Pradhan's piece is the best film appreciation I have come across during the past years in the 3 leading dailies I read regularly.Bollywood is a reflection of Indian political culture. Just as in the political culture one finds no intellectual or thinker, so in Bollywood one finds little aesthetic, or literate sesitivity to delight the mind. The recent seminar with Anupam Kher in the I.Express illustrates the shallowness of Bollywood and of its inluence. Neither the journaliss, nor Kher, said anything meaningful on the poverty of film language, its forgettable mongrel music which is always out of character with the story of the film, the intellectual vacuity of most films, the shameless abuse of plagiarising western films, the vacuous glorification of middling actors . How many good, serious, Indian novels have been translated into films during the last 20 years? Out of of the last 15,000 films? And why is Bacchan viewed as a prophet? Because he won the Booker prize in Baghban?
    See it, have fun.By: Sanjoy Gupta | 29-Jan-2009 Reply | Forward How does it matter, it is our movie or their movie ? It is great cinema, entertainment, a work of art. Enjoy it.
    SlumdogBy: Partha | 29-Jan-2009 Reply | Forward It is not our defeat because Slumdog-like movies which combine gritty realism with remaining true to Bollywood escapist fantasies, have been been made in India, in Hindi and in other languages . Most of them were in the 70s and 80s. These Slumdog-like films were never in Oscar contention, because they were not released in the US. Today, the rise of multiplexes and the need to cater to audiences that can shell out Rs. 200 per show may have a dampening effect on such films. Moreover, Bollywood's need to integrate songs into the screenplay mades it difficult for these films to acquire Slumdog's sensibility, which may well be a cultural difference. Even in Slumdog, the key song is part of the final credits and becomes an integral part of the movie in a larger thematic sense only because of A R Rahman's genius. Conversely, Danny Boyle could never have made Slumdog, if we were not a vibrant film-watching, prolific film-making country. So, it really is a victory for Bollywood. Jai Ho !
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