slumdog millionaires-photoshoped

After hearing so many good reviews about Slumdog Millionaires, i've finally decided to watch the movie yesterday night. I have to say, even without caramel popcorns, the movie was awesome, with a balanced taste of entertainment and inspiring message. It is a complete unexpected detour from what people usually perceived of Bollywood movie (singing, dancing, heroism), as it potraited the naked, ugly, pathetic life of millions of slumdogs in India to the world once and for all, with no reservation (except for the groupie dancing in the credits at the end). Frankly, it must be the most honest real-life renderring movie in the history of Bollywood. The story was presented as flashbacks of the past converges with the presents as Jamal told his story, and this gave a darker appeal to some of the scenes.

However, its kinda weird as it was an British Director (Danny Boyle) who made this movie (in another term it is a British film), and that all the actors speaks flashy English with no apparent Indians slang at all, which is the biggest lie in the whole movie. I can testify this cuz i have more than 20 India's Indians colleagues and none of them speak without shaking their head and Indian Slang. Well you can really see the ambition of the director in this, making the film in such a way to cater for the hollywoord mainstream and of course the critics and judges of movie awards.

What really triggered my interest is the appearance of Lord Rama in the movie. Although its only like a split second, however the image was so vivid in my mind. The deity was shown as a kid in bluish, holding a bow when the Hindus-Muslims riots taken place where Jamal's mom was killed. I cant really make a sense out of that scene as according to my understanding, Lord Rama is the incarnation of God Vishnu, the god of maintenance in Hindus's belief (Hindus have the trinity-alike concept, where the other two Gods are Brahma the creator and Shiva the destroyer/death). The Hindus Gods were believed to incarnate as different people to end a particular age (not human physical age, but the age of the world, e.g. age of industry, age of end time etc.) in order to pave the way for the start of a new era.

The Lord Rama in the movie and artist impression, are they look alike?

At first my interpretation was Lord Rama appears to end it all when the slum area were destroyed by the Hindus, however according to my Indian colleagues, Lord Rama is said to have taken birth on earth to annihilate the evil forces of the age (He is always holding a bow and arrow indicating his readiness to destroy evils).

Which means in this case, the muslims were seen as the evils in the eyes of the Hindus. And thats why Jamal said he wished that he had never saw the Lord himself. Not sure whether you have realized it or not that both Jamal and Salim are Muslims? Especially in Salims's last scene whereby his last word is "God is great", the "takbir" in muslim. Its a famous arabic expression, especially in Muslim terrosists movie. Anyway, further googling showed that such speculation had been wide spread and the Hindus are protesting and banning the movie as the image of Lord Rama was badly demontrated and as such denigrating the religious sentiments of Hindus.

Demontration by Hindus

Nevertheless, its still a good movie, i love how the movie directors playing with the myriad of colors to make the movie really stand out. If you still the image, the scenes are so breathtakingly beautiful, its like telling a real story in such an artistic way. anyway, below are some of my favourites:

The reunion scene of the brothers reminiscence their past life in slum area

The endless train ride

The river and the toilet