Film analysis: Slumdog millionaire - Essay Example

Film analysis: Slumdog millionaire Introduction The Slumdog Millionaire is a film by director Boyle Danny and written by scriptwriter Beaufoy Simon that is a drama film produced in 2008. Tanadan Loveleen co-directed the film and starred Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Mittal Madhur, and Khan Irrfan. The story revolves around the life of Jamal who participates in a life changing television show in India and is at the verge of answering the last question for him to become the millionaire, but the Indian police arrest him for cheating claims. The film takes the audience through many of the events in Malik Jamal’s life that hold the keys to the answers that he gave at the Kaun Banega Crorepati Hindu for Who Wants to be a Millionaire? game quiz show. The film is a 120 minute movie and is an adaptation of diplomat and author from India Swarup Vikas as the story tells of the adventures that Jamal had with his brother, Salim and the story about his love for Lakita that was unattainable. As much as the film attracted immense praise in the film industry, it also attracted a lot of critics because of the way that it portrayed the Indian society. Movie critics argued that the film portrays India as one that was divisive in terms of class. Critics also argue that a Westerner presented the wrong side of India, but the world celebrated the film as an excellent piece of work. Social Structures In most parts of the film, Boyle takes his audience to witness a fusion between the Hollywood and the Bollywood culture as most of the themes around the film revolve around western concepts. The overall portrayal of this is that a low class individual such as Jamal from the slums with minimal education background cannot outshine the elite class then going to win the millions hence the police classifying him as a potential thief. The implication of this is that the Indian culture only recognizes the rich and cannot accept the poor to become millionaires, which creates a social conflict. Many argue that Boyle did not paint the true picture of the Indian society and instead used this to create a celebrated film that had stereotyped the Indian culture. Boyle also made use of immense western related material in this film that presented India as a sophisticated republic then portraying the other side of this by using slums. The obvious illustration of this is that there is a great division between poverty and success in the Indian society just like in the west. On the contrary, the film depicts that people living in the slums of India have access to appliances perceived to be for the rich rather than presenting the true feel of poverty as recognized by society (Lu?sted 10). Another claim that surfaced during the shooting of the film is that some marketing brands requested that their products not appear in the scenes that depicted poverty hence meaning that their brands only associated with prosperity and the rich. Some of those brands include Coca Cola and Mercedes Benz as they did not want their brands, which associate with class and wealth across the globe to be in poverty scenes that devalue their products. Ironically, they had no problem with the use of their products in the movie scenes that illustrated affluence, which is part of their branding principle used across their global markets. Political Responses On the other hand, Boyle used the class and ethnicity issue as a divisive trait in the film as the tourists that Jamal and his brother stole from were only whites and could not have been Indian natives. Most of the tourists in the film are western hence clearly communicating the division in terms of class and ethnicity as Salam and Jamal could not steal from their own because they could not afford them. The film takes up globalization aspects all through in that the characters also use the ‘American justice’ system to solve minor offenses meaning that the Indian way of handling things is ineffective (Sadana 184). For instance, the scene where Jamal guides his tourists from America, the driver attacks Jamal when his car is stripped, but the tourists offer him a hundred dollar bill as compensation. This creates the idea of a developed western world that influences a developing nation to intertwine these two cultures. In order to communicate further, the success attached to the western culture, Boyle also uses a cast that is not local as the British Dev Patel acts as Jamal in the movie (Baumeister and Bushman 505). In essence, using actors whose origin is from the first world countries and not from India was for appealing to the affluent part of the population and not on the other population that has poverty attributes. The story line also revolves around westernization in that Jamal only succeeds after ditching his slum life to participate on a western influenced game show. The aspect of class is that he only grabbed the interest of Lakita because of his association to success, which is a cliche present in many western films that those from high society are the only ones that can attract beautiful women. From the camera work, Slumdog Millionaire communicates the poverty and desolation that characterize Mumbai, which pushes the rift between class and ethnicity. The makers of this film intended to present the slum life to the western audience as something that they can relate to and not the abjectness related to the real slum life. The other belittling aspect pretends by this film is in term of the levels of cruelty and lawlessness attached to the Indian slums, which is a bad signal to those that have no idea of life in Mumbai slums. The implication of this is that the Western audience that watches is likely to view the slums of Mumbai as per the illustrations in the film hence forcing the director to create a view that will not be disturbing to the viewer. According to critics, this becomes the Western superiority perception because the author of the book that gave birth to the movie adaptation does not receive as many accolades as compared to the makers of the film that receive a lot of praise for their work (Russell 125). The indication of this is that the west only comes in to save India from itself as it lacks the mechanisms to do so. Thinking About Inequality The other illustration of the division between the rich and the poor in terms of class is the fact that poverty forces the children in this film to search for employment as minors in order to make ends meet (Huber-Warring 511). The children also come from a background that nurtures juvenile delinquency and physical violence, which illustrates that nothing good can come out of the slums. This makes it unbelievable for people to take in the fact that a slum dweller could perform better at a game show that has intense western influence making Jamal to appear as a con. When arrested, Jamal finds it hard to explain how he got to know of all the answers to the quiz questions because of his poor background and its association to the lower class of the Indian society. The film title also conveys a contrast as it does illustrates how Jamal kept on being a slum dweller despite him becoming a millionaire. The scenes in the movie indicate how the highbrow culture are adamant to accept him not their class because of his origin. For instance, a broadcaster writes the wrong answer for Jamal to read while they were in the washrooms in order to influence Jamal to lose and go back to poverty. Boyle’s film attempted to illustrate that everyone in society has the opportunity to become what they want including millionaires, but social inequality will forever prevail. In this case, people influence people to free themselves from poverty into being reputable society members, but the truth of the matter is that people from the elite class do not accept from the lowbrow culture to be part of their class. Recommendations The recommendations to the characters about how to deal with their conflicts is that they need to associate themselves with the future and not with the past that they come from. Jamal lacked the confidence to make his intentions known about him trying to change the script of his life from that of poverty to success and the police were his first hurdle. In essence, coming from the elite class does not justify an individual as one that cannot steal. The characters should be able to defend themselves and Jamal should not have made the story of his life and struggles public because they formed the basis for judgment. As for the companies that allowed for the use of their brands in scenes that depicted affluence, they should not operate their businesses because creates a wider rift between the poor, the not so poor and the rich. Essentially, advertisement should target an entire population and they should find a way of incorporating the poor into their operations without discriminating on them directly. Works Cited Baumeister, Roy F. and Bushman, Brad J. Social Psychology & Human Nature. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2012, Print. Huber-Warring, Tonya. Storied Inquiries in International Landscapes: An Anthology of Educational Research. Charlotte, N.C: Information Age Pub, 2010. Print. Lu?sted, Marcia A. Poverty. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub, 2010. Print. Russell, William B. Teaching Social Issues with Film. Charlotte, NC: IAP, Information Age Pub, 2009. Print. Sadana, Rashmi. English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. Print. Read More