Is slumdog millionaire actually seen as clichéd garbage in India or is that another "Japan thinks new godzilla is fat see I know because of this one forum post!" Thing?
I donât think anyone thinks itâs âclicheâ per se (I mean, most mainstream Indian cinema is fairly melodramatic), but what it IS, is wildly inaccurate in ways that take away from the film. There are plenty of people who like it, Iâm sure, but itâs hard to watch because of how obviously and blatantly itâs made for a Western audience at every turn. The minor inaccuracies pile up to the point of annoyance, but itâs more than just anachronisms that make it tough to digest for Indian audiences, especially those in Mumbai.
I personally kind of enjoy the first 45 minutes or so, but it starts to roll down hill along with Salim and Jamal once they roll off the train tracks and land right outside the Taj Mahal. Itâs not so much because there arenât any tracks near the Taj Mahal, but more so because when they start speaking English, theyâre very clearly Anglophonic. Iâm willing to suspend my disbelief to a degree in terms of them now speaking English, and with the need to market to Western audiences, I get the need to have most of the film in a language they can understand (because people are too lazy for subtitles, and thatâs often a studio concern), but my issue is that the way they go about it involves a massive disconnect. Salim and Jamal are slum kids. If they spoke English, which many slum kids do (some are brought up with it in bits and pieces, some pick it up along the way), it would be their second language, and it would sound like it was their second language. In Mumbai, upper and upper-middle class kids tend to be brought up with English as a first language, and go to one of a handful of âeliteâ school, many of which were set up by the British way back when. I went to one, and both the actors playing the middle Salim and Jamal went to similar schools. I know both of them and Iâve even worked alongside Tanay (super sweet and talented by the way), but having Anglophones play those parts was jarring in terms of the dialog, the inflection and just their general demeanor. I like them and theyâre really talented, but Iâm not alone in saying casting them was a huge misstep. Itâs not so much them as individuals though, the casting process involved visiting their schools and looking for kids like them, which again, is the opposite of what you want for a movie about slum kids. Though honestly, I donât know how *anyone* couldâve made that dialog sound realistic. No Mumbaikar speaks that way. We donât call each other âBrother!â and all that. Sense8 has a similar problem.
Then of course thereâs Dev Patel, whoâs British, which is a further step away from what you want for a movie with the word âSlumdogâ in the title (also doubly weird for a movie about Indians by British filmmakers to have this title, since âNo Dogs and Indians Allowedâ was a thing when we were under British rule.
Iâm by no means a book purist, but another telling thing is what they chose to change and leave out from the novel, Q&A. When asked about the changes, the screenwriter said something about movies being about ideas, as opposed toâŠ. facts? I canât remember what the comparison was, but he definitely said that movies are about ideas, and I think he meant it in terms of emotional ideas. Which is true! The only problem is this moment was incredibly telling of his fundamental misunderstanding of Mumbai and Mumbaikars. You see, the change he was being asked about was Jamalâs name. Doesnât sound like a big deal, right? Well, in the novel, the characterâs name is Ram Mohammad Thomas. An odd name, but like the screenwriter said, stories are about ideas, and the central idea is that heâs a character that represents and is, in a sense, one with the city. Like Mumbai, heâs a melting pot of cultures (religions), with a Hindu first name, a Muslim middle name and a Christian last name, and which name he goes by depends on which part of the city heâs in. The movie uses the Bombay riots of the early 90s as a plot point, but communal tensions are a major part of life in the city. They certainly were in the 90s, and they hadnât gotten much better by 2006, when the film takes place. By erasing these elements, as non-Mumbaikar or non-Indian filmmakers might, theyâre doing a disservice to the story, to the characters, and to the city.
So when it comes to stuff like the Mumbai police using American handcuffs, you know what, fine. When it comes to the use of âmillionâ, ugh, okay, whatever (the Indian counting system goes from 10,000/ten thousand to 1,00,000/one lakh, to 10,00,000/ten lakhs to 1,00,00,000/one crore etc.), because, fine, thatâll help a western audience understand. Whatever. But when it comes to presenting a view of India, of Indians, and of Mumbai that is fundamentally dishonest, on every level? Thatâs where I take issue.
