If you don’t know much about Danny Boyle’s style of movie directing, then I would recommend you to watch Trainspotting. A dark humour on Society with focus on heroin addicted characters. Only this time, the dark humour is targeted at Indian class divide with tinges of religious violence.
The narrative style of Slumdog Millionaire reminds me of City of God, except that Slumdog Millionaire is based in the impoverished part of Mumbai. The eventual packaging of yet another rags-to-riches story has a Danny Boyle’s trademark but in the process he has given too much leeway for melodrama that makes this movie unsuitable for critical acclaim.
This is one heck of a masala movie that should have been doing its rounds at the Filmfare Awards Ceremony. But then who cares. It has already bagged the Golden Globes and is in line for few more Oscars. Eventually that is what it counts for those Critics that evaluate an individual’s performance on the Awards scale, and even worse this will be written in history. I personally think Rahman has dished out better compositions than this damn lucky one!
Here is a quote from Danny Boyle’s movie, Trainspotting:
“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”
Ironically, Trainspotting was nominated under one category for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Alter-ego: I heard that the 2008 Oscar committee was asked to pick out movies randomly through a lotto system.
Me: Who told you?
Alter-ego: The fortune-teller next door.