An Ingenious piece of art.

I’m talking about Slumdog Millionaire – the 2008 film by Danny Boyle which became the best film of the decade and the year at the Oscars. When I popped into this epic journey of ‘the good guy’ in search of his love life for the millionth time, the movie sounded as fresh as it was when I’ve seen it the first time. The reason is the authenticity in the film incorporated by Danny and team. This film undoubtedly had the best crew and cast. The major reason for the film’s stunning look is the cinematography which was brilliantly achieved by Anthony Dod Mantle. The film’s raw look and the disturbing intense images that intrigue us into observing each frame in the film is what made it a gripping piece of art. Visually far better than Danny’s previous works, Slumdog Millionaire is filled with innovative techniques in cinematography like many dutch angles which is more compelling.

The vision with which Danny directed the film is perhaps a lesson to all the filmmakers. Flexibility in the camera work which makes us look wherever the camera goes or rather wherever our eyes go, the camera goes is an ingenious technique we observe. Though we’ve seen non-linear narratives before, this film’s got a total different perspective where we get an answer every now and then for the question previously asked. Thus the characters’ intentions are revealed step by step which is a ‘thing’ that Danny found intriguing while working on the screenplay with Simon Beaufoy.

Few minutes into the film, we meet Jamal – the good and Saleem – the fox (I’m afraid to put him under the tagline ’the bad’) running on a runway escaping from the police into their locality, a typical slum of Mumbai (Bombay back then). The chase seen in the opening scene of the film is an inspiration from Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday where we see the police chasing a criminal in the slums of Mumbai.

Our intuition is simple on Saleem and Jamal, Jamal being the good, guiltless kid whereas Saleem is a ruthless, smartass, exploiting kid who grew strong as time passed by. Their journey starts together but their destinations are different. They are together all their childhood but grew differently, a great contrast between characters is seen very evidently and one can never forget the life the actors gave to the characters.

Jamal is in search of his love, Latika who they lost amidst the danger that they were about to face. The seriousness of the brothers in finding Latika is implicit when they get to a brothel preceded by the information provided by one of their old friends. Jamal then runs in happiness to find her in the brothel with his brother where his excitement is expressed through an excellent score (ringa ringa). Jamal learns the muscle of his brother when he shoots Maman to save Latika. He is awestruck by his brother’s bravery in saving her, he is more or less happy about it then but moments later he goes against his brother for his ill deeds and selfish needs. The film flows forward with Jamal going ahead alone still in search of Latika and this time too his brother is in his way snatching her away from him.

For his final question, Jamal chooses ‘Aramis’ after calling up Latika for the answer. She says that she doesn’t know the answer and just out of happiness that he spoke to her and making sure that she is safe, he chooses some arbitrary answer and becomes a millionaire. For better or worse, because of Latika and in search of her love, Jamal finds his treasure which is of course Latika herself.

The best thing that happened to the film is the director itself who got to choose Anthony Dod Mantle, Resul Pookutty, A.R.Rahman for his film which elevated the film’s level on a huge scale. The haunting score composed and conducted by Rahman is what attracted the Indian audiences and the fact that it was made in India about Indian people.

With Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle has become one of my favourite directors where his other films – Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 127 hours are on my all-time favourite list.