… Forget David Lynch!

A dear friends debut film. He wrote and directed this. 15 days of sweat and blood for 3mins.

In his words – “Its my first effort and there are loads of mistakes and improvements to be done.
There are parts which are real tacky in between. But the entire point was to get to know the difficulties here. Well atleast i can now confidently say that i am more aware of them.
donot ask abt the plot and meaning the mov is supposed to convey, coz there is none.”

WRITTEN ORIGINALLY FOR AND POSTED AT PASSIONFORCINEMA.COM

To what lengths would you go to get an autograph from a superstar actor? What all would you be willing to jump to get close, very close – in you face close – to a star that has sold you dream after dream after dream all your life? Jump from a chopper! Fly your family from Bay Area to Chicago and pay tons of money? Swim through a sewer??? Nah… the mentioned tasks are too easy if the superstar in question is Amitabh Bachchan. And Ladies and gentleman, of all the directors who have in some form or the other paid tribute to the Greatest Star of the Millennium – let me declare – Danny Boyle topped all of them and beat them with none even close! And that’s just one shot in Slumdog Millionaire.

Danny Boyle’s (Train spotting) latest is a story around how a boy born in the slums of Bombay win’s his love riding on the back on his experiences from his growing-up days to answer 15 questions and convince an overworked cop that he is not cheating on the show. Nothing more to it! If you let go of the initial adrenaline of being the fortunate few to watch the film in one of the most liberal places in the world where for large diasporas, India signifies freedom and a place to find solace and happiness, then you will walk out feeling very full at the treat dished out to you.    

The movie is cinematic, right from the word go, and that in itself is an achievement worth bowing to for a director born in a different land. Mumbai does not exist in the film – it’s all Bombay. And a Bombay that you would have probably never seen before. The amazing interweave of colorful and lively people and the corresponding contrast of the slums makes you believe that that characters and as a natural extension, the people, are oblivious to the inhuman conditions that surround them. A mix and match of rugged goons, docile orphans, street smart kids and IndYEAH eyed foreign tourists makes Slumdog a movie full of surprises at every turn of the plot, a plot that covers every aspect of what this great city offers – religious wars, cosmetic ill-treatments, power-struggles, showmanship’s, dream-sellers, rag’s to riches poster boys, mafia don’s, super-model prostitutes, trigger-happy teens and fearless humanists. And to point out very strongly here – Boyle does not fall into the trap of Indian Sentimentality even though he does get into the mind of an avg Indian Raju very well.

There is just too much of good work in the movie to talk about film – AR Rahman’s back-ground score, just the way he makes you tap your feet to the unfolding visuals and not be conscious about it al all, Irrfan Khan with his characteristic non-acting acting expressions, Saurabh Shukla as the overweight short-circuited hawaldar, Mahesh Manjrekar as the Mumbai ka Don, Dev Patel as the Lover-boy and Anil Kapoor as the evil & condescending host of “Who want’s to be a Millionaire” – that they gel so well with the characters that the viewer is just mesmerized all through to notice flaws if any. And for an Indian watching a film based on India and be very comfortable is the highest grade you can give to any alien director. Especially the guts and the ease to show the bitter truths of real India without making a mockery. And especially to show how horrible Taj-Mahal actually looks in broad daylight and how horrendously dirty its surroundings are.

To review a movie like this, you need lofty words, words that justify the effort and the pains labored into making a film like this – touted as the costliest film made in India – a one man’s vision. The setting and the breaking-news type of screenplay make it a riveting watch with no moments to pause. Yes the lead pair looks a little dull in spots and the English dialogues don’t sound too plausible at some special weighted scenes but considering that the movie was primarily packages to cater to the west’s sensibilities of how to view India – Danny Boyle has set a bar that will be very difficult to beat. 

But if there is one winner to drive this movie to the very brink of Oscar’s – that’s BOMBAY! Slumdog is a movie where you will see the city like you have NEVER EVER seen before. It’s like prose from Lin Baba’s eyes from Shantaram turning to Poetry and Rangoli all at the same time. The sadness, the apathy of the residents, the acrimonious nature of the harsh truth’s of life, the relentless mockery of life towards the under-privileged and the gifted alike, just blown to insignificant particles before the power that the city is – and the way it was all captured by Anthony Dod through his camerawork or more rightly cameras work – is nothing short of pure chilling genius.  Bombay never looked so right before… all the reams of paper eulogizing it have found the right visuals now, hence allowed to settle in comfort of obscurity. Slumdog Millionaire will carry the baton for a significant time from now. 

Can it get better than this? Out on itunes apparently!

WRITTEN ORIGINALLY FOR AND PUBLISHED AT PASSIONFORCINEMA.COM

If you look back at cinema from its inception, one of the most workable justifications for playing out something totally outrageous and uncanny was to just make the protagonist DREAM. In the case of Indian Cinema, due to the lack of breath taking vista’s in the vicinity of the slums that our protagonist lives, and due to the inability of our maker’s to dream the least, the scenario plays out very well to justify dancing in the woods of Europe and we are left with staring at the botany showcase of the region’s flora. But to make a point – DREAM’s actually give the writers some of the most exciting prospects to put their creativity to best use and come-up with something that totally knock’s the wind out of the viewer. 

I was recently listening to Charlie Kauffman on National Public Radio (like All India Radio), who happens to be in my top three scriptwriter’s that I have read (the other’s being Aaron Sorkin & Woody Allen – in that order) where he takes on the subject of dreams and justifies/attributes it some of the most incredible idea’s of his over the past decade of his work. In Adaptation – the concept of writing a writer who is trying to write a script about a writer trying to write – so simple yet so tremendously difficult, Charlie says, is a product of his dreams. How otherwise would you think up of stuff? Ok, you go to bed with some half formed thoughts but deep in sub-conscious state, the churnings of the brain take those half-baked idea’s and take then through a ride – a ride that you so often wish you can capture, but you just can’t. Well, if your Charlie Kauffman maybe! 

One example I would like to give here – How many of you regular PFC author’s or to that matter cine-buff’s who after catching a late show the night before – wake up with a start the next day morning with some concrete idea on how to say what you feel on that white screen in front of you? You know what you are going to say because your sub-conscious mind has digested the cinema and it all becomes so clear to you as to what it all meant but try putting it down on a piece of paper and you hit a dead wall! 

Going back to Charlie, another example is Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind that he so brilliantly wrote. The basic premise there again is to successfully get rid of Clementine’s (Kate Winslet) thought’s, Joel (Jim Carrey – wasn’t he SUPERB!) has to erase everything belonging to her physically from his surroundings so that the deep-subconscious does not get triggered due to it’s association – again – the physician’s explained there was that dreams could still trigger deep emotional feelings that the normal conscious would not. 

So, what’s the deal with dreams? Why are they so vivid at times, yet so bizarre that on some days you just think about how could such a thing be? My friend tells me she has recurring dreams of her floating in the air like that shot from “The Big Lebowlski” where when he get’s knocked out, he just floats in the sunshine. The fact still remains that some of the most creative ideas that you would probably have had in one’s life have had their metamorphosis in one’s dreams as total abstractions that initially make one question the very plausibility of such incidents – but in the end, it makes, so much sense! Or at least for me it does. 

As someone who has been struggling for the past 6 month’s to complete my first story, there are day’s when I just fall asleep on the ride back from work where a part that I am struck unravels in front of my eyes, with such congruence to what I am thinking that it seems so right but when I try to interpret them, they just don’t make no sense. It’s like a constant battle between Angels and Demon’s in my head where the Angels rule the world of sleep and the demon’s, possibly influenced by everything materialistic, just overpower the Angles to rule what I write. Is it due to my incapability to draw what my brain could come-up with, or should these just be inner personal thoughts – like inner entertainment for those 6-8hrs of sleep. 

An argument that could be made here is story-telling is nothing but a much emancipated form of putting words to fantasies that one has to enchant the audience. Yes, great fantasies are amazing stories and I for one digg anything that is supremely fantasized but from Comic Books to absolute goblin thrillers, there is a certain baseline to imagination – they are made believable, like the way Roy Walker (Lee Pace) tells Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) the story of the 5 hero’s in “The Fall” to extract his own revenge on the Star who steals his Girl. Brilliant Visuals and absolute classic interweaving of time-period’s, but at some level believable. But take Donnie Darko, the man with the bunny costume, the jet engine crashing, the prophecy – that’s interpretation of dreams very well told.

 I am sure most of you who are reading this have had numerous dreams that just defied every societal demon in your head. Extreme danger, wild rides, grossly exaggerated behavior of one’s self – these are just a few scenarios’ in the whole web of imaginative trip that your mind takes you every time you close your eyes, which just leaves with this one belief that every individual only needs to posses the power to interpret one’s dreams – if one chooses to become a creative fiction writer – as only a sleeping mind can take you to places that waking life would just not comprehend.