When I started writing the last entry I realized that my view of the film has changed considerably. Yesterday I would have agreed with all the critics and friends, who called it "a feel-good movie." It does leave you elated, but for me the good spirits evaporated overnight. What happened was exactly what I was afraid would happen after reading the reviews.
Slumdog Millionare only confirmed how I felt about India after reading Rohinton Mistry's
A Fine Balance years ago.
Roger Ebert says the movie shows you "the real India". I agree, but the impression I come away with is not a favorable one. As in the novel, the real India is once again presented as overwhelmingly chaotic, brutal, out of control, lawless, anarchistic, absolutely & utterly terrifying. I see a society where the majority of human beings lives under conditions that are worse than animals' in the wild, i.e. crammed, dirty, ugly. Here only the fittest survive, and nobody can afford mercy for the weak. The movie shows you in sordid detail what millions of Indians suffer, and how one single man rises above the dire poverty, against all odds, while also rescuing the love of his life. It's a hugely entertaining, dizzying, kaleidoscopic tour de force of a picture, but one improbable fairy tale story sitting as intricate and sweet icing on top of a huge mountain of bleakest misery cannot in the long run leave me feel good. I'm sorry. I wish it had.
When I started writing the last entry I realized that my view of the film has changed considerably. Yesterday I would have agreed with all the critics and friends, who called it "a feel-good movie." It does leave you elated, but for me the good spirits evaporated overnight. What happened was exactly what I was afraid would happen after reading the reviews. Slumdog Millionare only confirmed how I felt about India after reading Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance years ago. Roger Ebert says the movie shows you "the real India". I agree, but the impression I come away with is not a favorable one. As in the novel, the real India is once again presented as overwhelmingly chaotic, brutal, out of control, lawless, anarchistic, absolutely & utterly terrifying. I see a society where the majority of human beings lives under conditions that are worse than animals' in the wild, i.e. crammed, dirty, ugly. Here only the fittest survive, and nobody can afford mercy for the weak. The movie shows you in sordid detail what millions of Indians suffer, and how one single man rises above the dire poverty, against all odds, while also rescuing the love of his life. It's a hugely entertaining, dizzying, kaleidoscopic tour de force of a picture, but one improbable fairy tale story sitting as intricate and sweet icing on top of a huge mountain of bleakest misery cannot in the long run leave me feel good. I'm sorry. I wish it had.
No comments:
Post a Comment