India Masala
Bollywood and culture in an emerging India
If only Bollywood had discovered Freida
When Freida Pinto made it big on the international stage with “Slumdog Millionaire“, there were quite a few who couldn’t quite believe her success.
While she was feted all over the world, found herself on prestigious magazine covers and on high-profile red carpets, in the country of her birth, there was some reluctant praise and a lot of silence which is unusual for a country that “adopts” anyone who sounds remotely Indian and is a success in the West.
After ‘Slumdog’, Pinto got to work with two of Hollywood’s biggest directors, Woody Allen and Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), and I think I have seen more press about Anil Kapoor playing a bit role in the American TV series “24″ than Pinto’s appearances in these two films.
And now that the two films have done the rounds of the festival circuit and the reviews haven’t been too good, there are media reports again — almost writing her off as an actor.
I wish we would appreciate that she has been where even the biggest guns from Bollywood tried to go and failed. She has shared the stage as an equal with names such as Anthony Hopkins and didn’t have to rely on being the geeky Indian friend/sidekick kind of roles to make her foray into Hollywood.
I think we just can’t believe we didn’t discover her first.
Is ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ A.R.Rahman’s best score?
Waking up on a Monday morning is so much nicer when you wake up to good news, isn’t it?
A.R.Rahman winning two Grammys for “Slumdog Millionaire” certainly made my day, but as television channels played its theme song “Jai Ho” over and over again, I found myself wanting to hear some of his other compositions.
“Dil Hai Chota Sa” from “Roja” perhaps or “Naina Milaike” from “Saathiya”, “Ay Hairathe” from “Guru” and my favourite — “Arziyan” from “Delhi 6″.
While “Slumdog” and “Jai Ho” have captured the world’s imagination, I wonder if it is his best work.
When Rahman won the Oscar last year, I remember lyricist Gulzar telling me he thought Rahman’s music for Mani Ratnam’s upcoming film “Ravana” was his best.
And while I love the beats of “Jai Ho” and the haunting music of “Latika’s Theme” from the “Slumdog” album, they are not in my top five list of Rahman songs.
But then, how often is it that an artiste wins awards for his or her best work. Director Martin Scorsese won his first Oscar for “The Departed” which is not considered his best work. And just last year, Kate Winslet took home the best actress trophy for “The Reader” but many critics say she deserved it more for “Revolutionary Road”.
Shilpa, at the risk of getting beaten up by Rahman fans, I do not even think AR Rahman is India’s best talent. He is very very talented, yes. He stands out especially when compared to a mass of very average performers in a over-competitive industry. Who are we comparing Rahman to, SD Burman? Naushad? If these award committees ever cared to research Indian music deeply or seen beyond India’s beaten-to-death poverty, they’d be in for a shock. So, to answer your question, no, Jai Ho is at best a pop song, a very poor one at that.
‘Slumdog’ magic rubs off on India abroad
(Click here to watch video)
Bollywood and Indian culture is getting plenty of attention worldwide — thanks to the “Slumdog Millionaire” effect.
Danny Boyle’s rags-to-riches romance about a poor Indian boy competing in a TV game show scooped eight Academy Awards earlier this year.
The film’s global box-office success brought its relatively unknown young stars on the global stage (with lead actress Freida Pinto slated to star in Woody Allen’s next project).
In the U.S., Bollywood’s arc of influence is creating thriving ancillary industries and garnering buzz for the likes of celebrity stylist Shalini Vadhera.
The Los Angeles entrepreneur, with her Global Goddess beauty products, sits atop a business that brings in a million dollars annually.
“I always feel like Obama winning for the African Americans is ‘Slumdog’ winning for us as Indian Americans and South Asians was fantastic,” she says.
The Slumdog view
On a recent house-hunting trip in the suburbs of Mumbai, an enthusiastic real estate agent opened the French windows of a tenth-floor apartment and stepped aside to let us enjoy the view.
“It’s the Oscar view ma’am. The ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ view,” he said with a flourish as we took in the rows of slums spread out before us.
I have covered the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ “phenomenon” since December, when it first caught everyone’s attention.
I have followed it through the Golden Globe win, the Oscars, the “poverty porn” allegations and all the controversies that have hit the film after the original blaze of glory.
No wonder then that the real estate agent’s statement rankled. “Slumdog Millionaire” was supposed to be a great movie that touched people all over the world, a film both critically acclaimed and honoured with Oscars.
The film also brought child actors Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail in the spotlight and gave them a life they could barely have dreamed of earlier.
THE OSCAR CAP
Why is that the movie Slum Dog Millionaire is limited to million only, why not Billion? Why not Gazillion? – Or why not much more?
There is nothing to be proud of wearing the Oscar Cap, we know that India was ruled for 300 years by the Britishers and it is their contribution too is shared while projecting the Indian poverty line in the movie. Now we have no need to learn from them about our Indian poverty line, nor do we have the need to learn how to combat the Indian communal problems. The Britishers had precisely adopted divide and rule policy for the 300 years while they were ruling the country and the communal problems of India is the child birth of the Britishers contribution.
Quote with respect Mr. Bill Gates says – “I don’t think that I.Q is as fungible as I used to,” he says. “To succeed, you also have to know how to make choices and how to think more broadly.”
There is not a single example to be proud, where the Kaun Banega Crorepati TV show, has given a prize worth enough to any participants from the slums – or it is won.
If a son of a small advocate Mr. Bill Gates can reach to the heights and peaks of the world’s success – why not a child from Indian slums can dot it?
Why is that miserly approach even while weaving a dream for someone? Just because the movie is made by a handful of Britishers again, the Oscar is just the heard prize for India.
M.S.R MANEY
maneyrao @ gmail.com
No.165, Yeshoda Nilaya
5th Cross, Vinayaka Nagara
M.V. Extension,
Hoskote 562 114
Date: 05.06.2009
Slumdog’s Danny Boyle wants to make another film in Mumbai
“Slumdog Millionaire” was proof enough of British filmmaker Danny Boyle’s love for India and Mumbai. But the filmmaker hasn’t had enough of the city or this country.
Boyle told reporters on Wednesday he would love to make more films in India and was in fact in talks with filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Shekhar Kapur. He didn’t give any details but he did mention how much he loved working in Mumbai.
“Slumdog” producer Christian Colson was a little more forthcoming, saying a couple of projects were being discussed and Boyle was keen to direct them.
This is not the first time the British filmmaker has talked about making a film in India. In January, Boyle told a press conference in Mumbai he was keen to make a thriller in the city, because he felt its geography would lend itself very well to the subject.
Every ‘Slumdog’ has its day
Dilshad Qureshi, Rubina’s aunt, is a happy woman. She got up at five this morning, finished her household chores and dressed up in her nicest clothes.
For this woman from a Mumbai slum, the Oscars were coming home.
I was there at Rubina’s (the youngest Latika in the film) cramped quarters, located in a slum by the Bandra train tracks, since six in the morning.
As I sat there, watching the Oscars on their 38-inch LCD TV, I wondered if it all seemed a little incongruous.
An eight-year-old girl, who doesn’t have running water in her house but has a LCD TV, who didn’t go to school some time back but got the chance to act in a film being made by an unknown foreigner, and who hasn’t travelled much of her country but got to go to the biggest movie event of the year.
How strange; a movie about the horrors of childhood in the slums, and Indians are proud of it?
How about you do something about the deliberate maiming of innocent children to front the ‘Beggers Mafia’ thriving there?
Besides, the movie was only entertaining, and hardly any kind of artistic achievement. It will be quickly forgotten unless it spurs change in a culture dominated by the caste system.
Slumdog Millionaire: You can’t help rooting for it
Imagine falling off a running train and slithering down a rocky slope even as swirls of dust and grime envelop you. Most people would land up with a serious hospital bill or at least a broken bone or two. Jamal and Salim, two of the “three musketeers” in Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” just get up, shake off the dust and move on.
It might seem a little unbelievable or incredulous, but in the midst of watching “Slumdog Millionaire” (or ‘Slumdog Crorepati’ as the Hindi version is called), you shake off that nagging feeling and move on with Jamal and Salim, simply because you want to believe in their story. It’s not a believable story and yet the film makes you want to believe.
At least I wanted to.
Boyle’s film, which has wooed the West and is on its way to Oscar glory is this fast-paced, at times thrilling, at times chilling and at times poignant chronicle of one man’s journey.
Jamal Malik, who we first meet as an impish eight-year-old, steals your heart instantly and it is his story that sustains this film. Played in parts by Ayush Khedekar, Tanay Chedda and Dev Patel, Jamal’s journey takes you from the dirt and squalor of Mumbai’s slums to the Taj Mahal and then back again to the city of dreams.
Told in a series of flashbacks, we learn that Jamal, a slum dweller who has won 20 million rupees on the Indian version of the gameshow ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, has been arrested by the police for fraud.
As the police inspector grills Jamal on how a slum kid could know the answers to such tough questions, Jamal begins to narrate the story behind each question and the answers to them which tell the story of his own life.
so many mistakes in this movie, it actually is insulting my intelligence. I’ll go through some of the obvious ones.
1)’who wants to be a millionaire’ is NOT shown live. Whether it is in the US, Australia, Uk etc. The show is pre-recorded.
2)The ‘cricket’ question halfway up the list is a joke. Indians are cricket crazy. 99% would’ve known the answer to that question.
3)The last question is also a joke. A fifth grader can answer that.
4)the old Jamal has no personality. He’s like a one dimensional goofhead. There is no way he could’ve gone past the screening process to make it onto the show.
5)With the toilet scene, he could’ve tried to climb out of the toilet instead? I think any kid with half a brain would’ve thought about that first.
-
The Wall
Frieda Pinto for all her success wasn’t the most promising talent from Slumdog Millionaire and it was good fortune (and maybe a good agent) that she got a break in Hollywood. It must also be admitted that everyone and her uncle wanted to have some link with Frieda after the Oscars, with one brand even coming out with advertisements featuring her despite Pinto having done the modelling for it earlier. Sometimes there is a fall after a rise, and perhaps the lack of any known future projects is why she is being written off?