Mumbai has been a mysterious city for story writers and film-makers alike. The fast-moving life and events of Mumbai is pictured in as many as films. But the new film Slum dog Millionaire, by acclaimed director Danny Boyle based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup stands apart with unique harmony of Mumbai’s slum and posh life.
| This film is based on a twisty story of a young slum-dweller charged with foul play after winning a massive fortune on the nation’s most popular TV quiz show. Mumbai has become the most talked about city around the world after the deadly terrorist attack of 26/11/ 2008.
The life in the exciting city will be discussed on the basis of this film more powerfully than ever, thanks to the marvelous story, genius direction, fantastic music, bizarre starring and the world class production. This film is being contemplated among American elite class and movie admirers equally. In the very beginning of release, this film got many prizes including the first prize of the U.S. awards season and several British prizes during its recent playing in North America. The film has nominated for Golden Globe award for best film, best actor and best screen play. A.R. Rahman has been nominated for his work in this film in the best score category. It is a winner of People’s Choice Award in Toronto International Film Festival. This film will release in India on Jan 23, 2009 as a new year gift for every film lover who has a passion for exuberant movies with a blend of variety. ‘Slum dog Millionaire’ has action-filled life, rhythm, love, fantasy and comedy. There are shots of iconic Taj Mahal, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, steamy slums and prolific television studios. Jamal (Dev Patel), the slum-dweller’s victorious transformation to a millionaire in that show posed many doubts on the mind of authority. How could an uneducated street kid possibly know so much? The jaded Police Inspector (Irfan Khan), decides to untie the story. He spends the night probing Jamal’s incredible past, from his spell-binding tales of the slums. Jamal and his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) survived by their wits to his frightening encounters with local gangs to his heartbreak over Latika (Freida Pinto), the unforgettable girl he loved and lost. |
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Popular Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, joined the cast in another key role: that of Prem, the anxious, egotistical host of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” who mystified by Jamal’s knowledge, calls the cops in on the cusp of his big win. Prem is also from the slums. He wants to hold onto his power no matter what and Jamal seems like a threat to him.
Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out…
The result is the sweeping, stylish, intoxicatingly human experience of Slum dog Millionaire. For Danny Boyle, the challenge was to capture the light and dark contrasts of the city with fresh eyes – creating a visceral, immediate experience for audiences, immersing them in its sweltering heat and teeming corridors. His plan was to shoot in the heart of the city’s infamous but rarely explored slums, capturing their energy and urgency on-the-fly, with an unforced realism. As a newcomer, his own emotional reactions to his first forays into the city became part and parcel of the film’s design. “I thought it was an extraordinary place in the extremes that you experience there.
Latika, the love of Jamal’s life, who drives his story from the first time he meets her as a desperate, brokenhearted street urchin in the pouring rain until the moment she unexpectedly reappears in his life. His incessant zeal for Latika makes this film a vibrant love story. An Indian model and newcomer to acting, Freida Pinto, who Simon Beaufoy, the script writer of this film says, “has got that extraordinary beauty alongside a strong sense of sadness about her, which we needed very much for her part in the film.”
For Pinto, who makes her film debut in Slum dog Millionaire, approaching the character of Latika was an exciting process. Having Boyle guide her through the scenes, offering advice and allowing her the freedom to try different approaches meant she quickly developed a solid understanding of where the character’s strengths come from. “Danny wanted me to explore the character as much as I could. Internalization is something that Danny really taught me,” she says.
Boyle also felt that the film’s lead, Dev Patel, who stars as Jamal, would benefit from spending time in Mumbai before the cameras rolled and invited the young actor to come along on several location scouts.
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail who plays the young Salim and Rubina Ali, who plays the young Latika, were both found in the slums of Mumbai and, knowing no English, speak in their native Hindi dialects in their wrenchingly realistic scenes. For Patel, the experience helped him better understand the character and where he came from. But also, the challenges that you face are just beyond anything you can imagine.
“I’ve been to slums before but in different places in the world, like Kibera in Kenya, but this was different in all its contradictions. There’s this smell you get first of all… This incredible mixture of excrement and then saffron, a mixture of the sweet and the sour,” All of these observations and sensations became part of the intensely textured fabric of the film.
“I really wanted to have a chance to play a scene when I was actually in the depths, in the slums, immersed in that environment,” says Patel. “Being on the locations really helped me to build a background for Jamal and see where he’d grown up. In one location Danny saw a few kids playing the drums on the street. They were preparing for the Ganesha Festival. Danny told me to turn my T-shirt inside out, because I had a big logo on it, and said, ‘Go and join them!’
Christian Colson, the producer notes that the production purposefully left the beaten path behind. “Some of the specific challenges we faced were of our own making, in as much as we elected to shoot the vast majority of this movie in real locations, on the streets of one of the most densely populated and chaotic cities on earth,” he says.
“We put as many real slum-dwelling people in the film as we could get,” says Boyle. “The slums are actually thriving, bustling mini-metropolises. Now, in fact, what’s happened, because India is a democracy, is that the slums have become incredibly powerful places politically because they have a lot of people in them.”
Part exhilarating love story, part eye-catching journey into the underbelly of the so-called “maximum city” of Mumbai, part stirring tale of an Everyman’s triumph against a harsh, cynical world, Slum dog Millionaire is a visceral, action-packed Dickensian epic for the 21st Century. At the heart of its lively storytelling lies the intriguing question of how anyone comes to know the things they know about life and love. The Fox Searchlight Pictures / Warner Bros. Pictures release the film.
The project was initiated at Film4 who co-developed and co-financed the film with UK Production Company Celador Films. Film4 chief Tessa Ross and Celador Films Chairman Paul Smith acts as executive producers. The film is released in English and Hindi.
