Comments on: Slum Dog Millionaire is not a great film

By: Sriram

Sriram — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:54:00 +0000

@Anne, that’s exactly what I felt

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:42:29 +0000

I saw the movie this afternoon and, honestly, I could have done something better than watching Slumdog Millionaire. I think the movie is well made, the way the whole story is told is something new, I guess, but I really don’t think it deserved 8 OSCARS. But well, people in the US are such hypocrites. In simple words, they want to look good and pretend to be sympathetic: “Oh, poor Indian people”… come on! I’m really disgusted by that. Bottomline: Slumdog Millionaire didn’t live up to the hype.

By: Prashanth

Prashanth — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:58:55 +0000

Sriram, grow up! Life isn’t fair. If anyone told you that then they lied. The Oscar is not the ultimate achievement. Any award is merely meant to say that a contribution was outstanding. It is not to say that the contribution is the only outstanding piece of work.

Your argument is mainly flawed because you are not arguing for the film to be a bad one. You are merely “angry” at the film being awarded an Oscar.

By: Sriram

Sriram — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:52:44 +0000

@Prashanth
I’m not against the points you’ve mentioned. I don’t want the film maker to clarify whether slums are in UK or not. I just tried to stress that the dirt is universal. Yes, real India has dirt and no doubt the movie has captured it in a good package of cinematography, music and direction. For that it can be accepted as a good movie and it deserves nothing more than that.

When there is no passion or emotional appeal aroused by the film against the dirt it shows, i just feel the whole movie is an attempt to woo the western audience by exploiting India. And if the awards are only for showing the dirt just because it is real, then many indian movies and directors have already done it! The movie you are talking about – did it claim “reality” on its depictions about india or indians? Or was it over hyped to get Oscars? And if you think reality is always rewarded, that is also not true. Even the film Gandhi had a real story.. very well taken movie.. But it didn’t win oscars. Why??

@Manivannan
That’s a westernized way of supporting the movie! Do you think what you have described is enough for a movie to win Oscars? For all your points, the movie can be described as ‘good’. The movie is good, different, but not great!

And Americans showing themselves as racists doesn’t mean we can follow or accept similar things! West cannot be the benchmark for us

Of course, you can consider and understand a million and one useless things with that ‘follow the west’ mentality!

By: Manivannan

Manivannan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:36:57 +0000

You have forgotten the theme of the movie.. the protagonist never loses faith and hope and crosses all the obstacles in life which eventually makes him a millionaire. The beauty of the movie is it doesn’t show someone suffering in poverty like hell as the usual movies show and portrays them from a different angle altogether. If you notice it carefully the protagonist and his brother are always busy counting ‘money’ in the movie.

There are many movies in Hollywood too which has picturised them americans as racists and showing the adversities they undergo in life.. eg. Pursuit of Happyness..

I regret that you have written the blog without considering and understanding many other things..