Slumdog Millionaire

Firstly, I will not be writing a traditional review. I saw the film some weeks before it won all those globes and then went on to get a respectable bevy of Oscar nods. However, I never felt the need to cover it or recommend/deter anyone from seeing the picture period. I liked the movie overall, thought the direction was skilled and inspired, the cinematography vivid and exciting, and the story excellently paced and interesting enough (the central conceit of the gameshow answers coming from the protagonist's life experiences is a brilliant one even if it is cheating.) However, Slumdog is essential a lame love story with a music number at the end.

The interesting thing to me about Slumdog Millionaire is all the attention is has received, both positive and negative, despite the fact that the film is relatively ordinary and, quite frankly, empty. Yet, there are many writers out there absolutely falling over themselves to praise the British-made picture. Recently some mouth-breather named David Gitten wrote an article for the UK online publication The Telegraph in which he postulated that Slumdog Millionaire is the "first film of the Obama era." To quote the article,

The first striking thing about this British-made film is its even-handed, generous spirit of universality. It is set in India and it's about Indians. There is no hint of Merchant Ivory decorum, the predicaments of rich westerners far from home, nor any notion that Boyle and his team were engaged in a David Lean-style imperial adventure in what was once one of the pink regions on the globe. Refreshingly, there is also no white character to "explain" the story (which needs no explanation) to western audiences.

"No white character." This is part of Gitten's reason for believing Slumdog is part of the "Obama era." Why? Because Obama is (half) black, of course. Back to race, (even though Obama has unfied us and removed race from the equation, right?) Has Gitten already forgotten about City of God, a far more honest, and even less "white" film that dealt with almost the exact same subject matter (favelas of Brazil instead of Slums in India) without any of the lame love story crap thrown in? Slumdog may not have a white character in the film "explaining" the story, but nearly the whole movie is in English! The English parts of the movie aren't even narratively motivated. The film just, whenever it feels like it, switches from Hindi to English to ensure that "white" audiences are thoroughly "explained" the story. Gitten goes on to further state,

It does not have an ironic moment. It is utterly devoid of cynicism. Instead, it is bright-eyed, optimistic – idealistic, even. To generations reared on a drip-feed of corrosive cynicism, the elevation of greed for greed's sake and weary disillusion with our leaders and our institutions it feels almost shocking.

Gitten has the audacity to say that 1) Slumdog is devoid of cynicism and "greed for greed's sake" despite two of its key characters being cynical, greedy villains who are neither redeemed nor condemned by the film (the brother and the gameshow host), and 2) this optimistic, idealistic tendency is the hallmark of the "Obama" era. According to the addlebrained Brit, there were no movies made before Obama came along that exhibited optimism. Had Gitten been simply watching all of the Iraq War movies that Hollywood liberals pushed out, he may logically be forgiven for such an ignorant observation, for the entire tenor of the Democratic Party, Obama's party, is and has been one of cynicism specifically in regards to A) The War B) George W. Bush and C) America's position as a world power. It isn't that optimism has been missing from filmmaking during the past few decades, it is that the optimistic films have been ignored. How in allah's name was The Dark Knight not optimistic? In that film Batman literally battles against the cynicism of the Joker in a showdown whereby two ships full of people refuse to blow each other up to save their respective lives. Batman's faith in Gotham at that moment stands in stark, optimistic opposition to the cynical view of the Joker that everyone is simply watching out for numero uno. But no, that film cannot be the first film of the "Obama era" because of its staunchly pro-War on Terror standpoint...that and it is full of white people.

Back to the issue at hand; Slumdog says nothing new. Though being set in India and featuring Indian characters, it offers very little insight into modern Indian society and in fact, according to the Indians themselves, hides the truth behind a cinematic sheen; a veneer of movie magic if you will. The statistical wizards who create such things say that 9 million people out of the 20 million that are packed into Mumbai (Bomaby for those who don't speak PC) are below the "poverty line" and live in slums. Slumdog Millionaire brushes this statistic over and merely uses the slums as a reference point (look how far he has come!) in the framework of what is essentially another "American dream" story where the poor boy, through wit and determination becomes wealthy and along the way gets the girl. Even the most compelling part of the movie, the depiction of child abuse by gangs in order to extort money, is marginalized into a convenient plot point (that damsel has got to be in some kind of distress).

Oddly enough, those poor Indians who actually did see the film think its a pure Hollywood fantasy, a betrayal of the true hideousness of the beggar gangs in Bombay, and a crock o' crap in general (don't you dare call it Bollywood). The actual slumdogs are effectively rioting in the streets and attacking cinemas in protest--mostly because they don't like "dog" being in the title.
To quote the Times Online,

"Referring to people living in slums as dogs is a violation of human rights," said Mr Vishwakarma, who works for a group promoting the rights of slum dwellers. "We will burn Danny Boyle [the film's British director] effigies in 56 slums here."

They are upset, because unlike America and Britain, people in the rest of the world don't think dogs are cute and take offense when called such. I think their ire is inconsequential, and a bit stupid, but the disconnect between Gitten's retarded article and reality deserves to be brought to light.