Review of Slumdog Millionaire

I really enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire. It was definitely not what I was expecting, i went into this movie knowing very little about it. I always find movies more enjoyable if you go into them knowing either very little or nothing at all. This movie is set in India, the majority of the movie takes place in Mumbai. The set of the movie is really aw-inspiring. The use of the slums of the big cities and the vast country side that is shown through the use of the train system, that seems to be heavily used and very over crowded. The Taj Mahal is used also as a set and shooting point. The camera shots are also very interesting, the director uses a lot of wide angle and zoom out views of the cities to show the viewer the true sprawling nature of the slums and what people truly live in. The best two shots that the film has are the birds eye view of the slums and the shot of Jamal and Salim sitting on a floor in a skyscraper that is on the neighborhood that they grew up in. It was really interesting to get another view point of the Taj Mahal, as foreigners we see the structure as a national monument to India that is treated exactly like all of the monuments that we have. The view point that the director shows is that of stealing and cheating. The scene of Jamal and Salim stealing shoes, giving fake tours, taking pictures and stealing purses shows what it takes for some of the really impoverish people of the society to live.
Another aspect of this film that really drove home the point of a child from the slums making it to the big time is the costumes that the actors are wearing. It starts right away showing the children in the slums wearing rags and dirty clothes. It shows the adult men wearing really dull colors and the women wearing bright colors, but both are still bleak and desperate looking. As the two boys grow up and there lives start taking different paths there wardrobe changes with them. Salim grows up with a life of crime, so he has on nicer clothes and has nice accessories, Jamal grows up living a life that is honest and very uninteresting. He wears very common and normal clothes. It really set apart the different worlds that the boys lived in at the end of the movie, with the world that both boys came from at the beginning of the movie.
Reading the article by Christine Davies, titled Wagging the slumdog; she had some very interesting viewpoints from the people of India about this movie. While the whole country was excited and proud of the film from their country winning all of these international awards, there was another group that thought the movie cast a negative light on there country and the city of Mumbai. I disagree with these people, I think that most people know that there are people living in other countries that live in poverty. People know that there is crime in other countries. I think that the director just tried to make the movie as realistic as possible. The revelation was not that there is poverty and crime in India, it was how vast, and truly, common it seemed to be.
Overall I would recommend this movie, it was both entertaining and educational. This movie showed a side of India that I had neither seen or read about.

The Art of Watching Film. Boggs, Petrie. McGraw-Hill. New York, NY. 2008.

Wagging the Slumdog. Davies, Christie. New Criterion; Apr2009, Vol. 27 Issue 8, p31-33, 3p