The Conical Glass: It's a hard knock life

Friday, October 17, 2008

It's a hard knock life

I wasn't surprised when the grosses for Disney talking-dog comedy "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" surpassed those of the Middle East thriller "Body of Lies" last weekend. It should be obvious by now that any film that can even be loosely associated with the words "Iraq" and "war" is box office poison. Add in the financial turmoil, and the climate looks very, very good for escapist fluff (as I've stated before, I think the blockbuster ratings for "Dancing With the Stars" are another sign of the times -- well, that and the insatiable desire to see if Cloris Leachman can tango).

Throw my bum shoulder into the mix, and I haven't exactly been hankering for anything too serious myself. Perhaps that's why I can't wholeheartedly embrace "Slumdog Millionaire," the new film by Danny Boyle ("Trainspotting") which left the Toronto Film Festival on a cloud of ecstatic buzz. I went into it not knowing anything about it other than it was set in India; that must guarantee at least one Bollywood-style song and dance number, right? It does (have patience), but what comes before is rough going.

The film opens with lead character Jamal Malik being tortured by police, who suspect him of cheating on the Indian edition of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" Surely the 18-year-old kid from the slums couldn't have known the answers to the tough questions he was asked. He's dunked in water and then is shocked with electrodes attached to his body -- what is this, the Indian equivalent of Abu Ghraib? But Jamal continues to insist that he's innocent. He knew the answers, and then he starts to explain why. And we learn that the last thing Jamal cares about is the prize money.

There's a bit of magical realism involved (all of Jamal's questions relate to incidents in his life, which we see in flashback), but the scenes of the boy's childhood in the slums seem all too real. We meet little Jamal, an unbelievably adorable youngster, and his brother Salim, who have an additional strike against them -- they're Muslim as well as dirt poor. I don't want to give too much away, but the things that happen to them (and the girl, Latika, they meet along the way) are bad, bad, very bad, awful and horrific. "Slumdog Millionaire" has been described as Dickensian, and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy packs at least 600 pages' worth of woe into two hours.

So why go see this movie? The cinematography is awe-inspiring -- there's one scene where Jamal and Salim are being chased through their neighborhood, and the camera pans out, and then further out, and further still, and we gasp at the sheer size of the slum they inhabit. There are scenes of the purest desolation (huge piles of trash, like something out of "Wall-E"), and those of stunning visual beauty (a portion of the film takes place at the Taj Mahal). Boyle's kinetic visual style shows what a bold and confident director he's become.

"Slumdog Millionaire" reminded me a bit of Will Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness," in which a homeless single father suffers one indignity after another, only to emerge victorious at the very end of the film. (In retrospect, that BART restroom where Will and his son were forced to spend the night looks pretty plush compared to the slums of Mumbai.) It is a tale of survival against awesome odds, but it's also tough going through much of its running time. I suspect film buffs will love it, but will it really be this year's "Juno"? I think the odds of that are about on par with a kid from the slums winning millions of rupees on a game show -- you never know, but it's highly unlikely.

"Slumdog Millionaire" opens in limited release on Nov. 12.

posted by 125records @ 10:46 AM

2 Comments:

At 9:15 PM, Jeff said…

Reading your description of Slumdog Millionaire made me realize that I read the book it was based on--Q&A by Vitkas Swarup. I remember enjoying the book quite a bit, and I'll have to look for the movie.
At 6:54 AM, yellojkt said…

An Hispanic NPR show went into great detail about how culture-affirming the chihuahua movie is. They did seem a little taken aback to think it took yappie dogs to mainstream Latino culture.