After the White Tiger, it is the Slumdog. If there was TV in 1945, the Independence Day would not have got as much viewership. Man, the craze was just nauseating especially Anil Kapoor’s antics at the BAFTA, definitely deserves an Oscar for ’stand up comedy’.
Sea of Poppies lost out to White Tiger, arguably a much better book in terms of content. And now Slumdog, when Taare Zameen Par was a more striking movie. My angst is about less deserving books and films getting the glory. (BTW I think that this is one of Rahman’s less impressive scores.) Is there more than meets the eye? Has playing out a formula taken over artistic expression? I have said this before, there is no doubt that White Tiger was a ‘made for Booker’ novel. I haven’t seen Slum Dog but the rushes show the same settings – slums and slime. Come to think about it, what is it about India’s slums and poverty that interests the West so much? No, I am not being defensive at all.
The good thing is that the nation got a reprieve from Arnab Goswami and Rahul Kanwal ranting about Taliban ’swat’ting Zardari in the valley. Though I am sure Muthalik must be hating Boyle for spoiling his ’thong and dance’.
I totally understand what you’ve written.
My point of view from the ‘West’.
(I want to say first of all that I did not particularly like the movie. I liked the book – Q&A – though.)
While The white tiger is a made for Booker product, I don’t think that the Slumdog is a made for Oscar product. The success was quite unexpected. And the movie is very different from other Hollywood products.
I know there are much better Indian movies. However they are not known in the West. It is difficult to find them even in dvds in Indian shops (at least with subtitles…).
And some Indian movies are difficult to understand for the western public, who has a very different taste.
The Slumdog is a view on India, but made by a British director. The esthetics of the movie is all western, with some Indian injections (music for example…).
Of course AR Rahman made much better scores. Anyhow, most of people here in Italy never ever heard of him before.
Now they know him and they are interested in his music.
It could be a starting point for more real-Indian movies here. (I hope so and that’s why I am happy for the success, even if I am not a fan of the movie at all!).
Just think that after this movie, the word ‘Bollywood’ here has not a negative meaning anymore (even if people here still don’t know what Bollywood exactly is).
And now the big question… why is the West so interested in Indian slums?
I feel this question addresses to me directly: I spent all my last holidays working in a Mumbai slum.
Well, I love India, because it is a great country, with a long history, with a diverse culture, with wonderful people.
I love India because it is different from the West.
I love its music, food, books, movies, historical sites, its trains and, also, its slums.
I am interested in Indian slums because there are Indian, because we do not have such big slums here. Because I feel sympathetic with the slum dwellers. Because I have felt love and affection from them.
Maybe also because I feel guilty for the wealth of the West.
Or maybe even (using Adiga’s words) because I am a “white-skinned man, who has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuse” and so I am searching something else (poverty) in the land of the brown men.
But mainly because being in a slum (in the real life or through a movie) has meant to change, once in my life, my point of view, my western point of view.
Please forgive me for such a long comment
Wow Silvia, I am very impressed about your knowledge and incisive views on India. Your slum work impresses me even more albeit with a whole dose of guilt about my own insensitivity to our poverty.
However, as I said I am not being defensive about our slums and hovels, I was just wondering aloud about the West’s interest in it. And yes, I am also ashamed about the Indian knack of claiming kinship on anything or anyone that is in the limelight – our syllabuses list VS Naipaul as an Indian Writer, when he has stoutly refused it; we claim Slumdog is an Indian movie though it was made by a Brit; we adopt Sunita Williams because she is famous….the list goes on.
It is not that different here in Italy. We are proud of anything that has something of Italian in it, especially when it reaches the US, but then we complain if the image given in the movie/book is not good.
)
This year an Italian movie (Gomorrah) about Italian mafia was proposed for the Oscars. People were happy, but then they also complained that not all the Italians are in the mafia and so the idea itself was offensive for Italians…
(at the end the movie was not even among the nominees
I guess you are not so sensitive to Indian poverty because you have been used to since you were born. We are not so used to it, so we feel shocked and deeply touched. But that doesn’t mean we are ready to do something (or to waive something) for it!