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18 February 2009
Hyderabad
While 'Slumdog Millionaire' is becoming the gold standard in making international cinema, why are some Indian film makers like Mahesh Bhatt and Priyadarshan thrashing the film?
A) Stupidity B) Sour grapes C) Ignorance D) No wonder they are left unknown to the world
Take your guess!
To say that 'Slumdog Millionaire' is a huge success only because of its 'poverty porn' would be to misunderstand it. Apart from its universal theme of boy’s triumph in love for a girl in the extreme oddities, the reason for the moviegoers hooking to this film is its novel way of narrating the storyline through a Quiz show “Who wants to be a millionaire?”. How many movies did you see where the entire climax was driven by what was happening on TV? English films are generally categorized as Romance, Drama, Action or Musical. But 'Slumdog Millionaire' is like a typical Bollywood film -- containing all genres.
With 10 Oscar nominations and sure to win in most of the categories, "Slumdog Millionaire" is the closest that Mumbai matinee has come at Mecca of movieland -- Academy awards. Folks like Amitabh Bachchan may write it off as an under achievement and say that Oscars are not true measure for the quality of Indian films. Again, whatever is your guess (from the above four options) on such comments, one can not stop raving this small film (made on a shoe-string budget with unknown stars) that turned into a global blockbuster - $100 million and counting.
90 % of the credits rolling at the end of this film have Indian names. Critical casting of all characters and co-direction were done by Loveleen Tandon. Script of the film was adapted from Indian novelist Vikas Swarup's book "Q&A". Music was composed by Indian musician AR Rahman. How did our desi film-makers like Mira Nair, Shekhar Kapoor, Deepa Mehta and Vidhu Vinod Chopra miss the opportunity of discovering and lapping up such an India-centric project? How did a British director achieve the impossible task of taking such a Hinglish film to the doorstep of Oscars? Like the end-title of the film shows, may be "it is written" or destiny!
Other ‘Best Film’ nominees of 2008 -- ‘Milk’, 'The Reader', 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and 'Frost/Nixon' -- are good movies, but 'Slumdog Millionaire' is a far superior product.
Endorsing that a movie is primarily the director's medium, in a rare honour this year, all the directors of five 'Best Film' nominations were nominated in 'Best Director' category: Danny Boyle ('Slumdog Millionaire'), Stephen Daldry ('The Reader'), David Fincher ('The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'), Ron Howard ('Frost/Nixon') and Gus Van Sant ('Milk'). Danny Boyle is the obvious front-runner though one should salute the rare hat-trick of another British director Stephen Daldry. Daldry directed three movies so far -- 'Billy Elliot', 'The Hours', 'The Reader' and received 'Best Director' Oscar nomination for all the three movies!
'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' has maximum number of 11 nominations but it may not win any major award this year including 'Best Actor' for Brad Pitt. Sean Penn in ‘Milk’ may give a surprise fight but Mickey Rourke would be the ultimate winner with ‘The Wrestler’. Mickey, who left Hollywood 15 years back for boxing profession, came back with a bang in 'The Wrestler' and surprised everyone with the convincing portrayal of an aging wrestler.
‘The Reader’, based on Bernhard Schlink’s best-seller, had many challenges for the leading lady role – she had to appear nude in the first 30 minutes with 18-year old German actor David Kross and she had to age to a 65-year old woman in the latter part of the story. But Kate Winslet (who also acted in another book-to-cinema adaptation this year of Richard Yates’ classic novel ‘Revolutionary Road’) impressed with her range of histrionics as Nazi prisoner. It is the role of a lifetime and Winslet may be preparing for her first Oscar speech though she has tough competition from Meryl Streep ('Doubt') and Melissa Leo ('Frozen River').
Heath Ledger, who richly deserved Oscar in 'Brokeback Mountain' as homosexual cowboy, will finally get his due this year as Joker in 'The Dark Knight' albeit posthumously. Ledger will be the second actor in history to receive Oscar after death unless another deserving ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Michael Shannon is singled out by the Academy. Sam Mendes’ ‘Revolutionary Road' was not nominated in major categories this year but brought laurels to Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet who acted together for the first time after 'Titanic'. But the surprise packet of this film is Michael Shannon in the role of a depressed straight-talker. You can not take eyes off his acting whenever he appears on screen though he shares it with powerhouses like Kathy Bates, Leonardo and Kate.
If there is any award up for grabs this year, it is 'Best Supporting Actress' award. It is tough fight among Penelope Cruz (crazy ex-wife in Woody Allen's 'Vicky Barcelona'), Viola Davis (mother of an abused kid in 'Doubt'), Amy Adams (innocent nun in 'Doubt'), Taraji P. Henson (mother of Benjamin Button) and Marisa Tomei (stripper in 'The Wrestler'). Viola Davis (she appears for just 11 minutes in the film) and Marisa Tomei may bring it to the wire.
If there is any award that is already locked by Academy’s computer, it is 'Best Adapted Screenplay' award for Simon Beaufoy ('Slumdog Millionaire'). Though lion's share of the credit goes to the story writer Vikas Swarup, Simon’s multi-layered script with astonishing minute details of Indian setting is a feat by itself. His 'Slumdog' screenplay will go down in Oscar history as one of the best screenplays of all-time.
Whoever saw Grammy Awards on 8th February were shocked to see 9-month pregnant M.I.A. upstaging the most famous rap quartet Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and T.I. on the biggest music stage in the world. Such is the power of M.I.A.'s raw music talent and the popularity of her song 'Paper Planes' in 2008. For starters, Maya Arulpragasam aka M.I.A. (Missing In Action) is a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee who migrated to U.K. and now living in New York.
What can you say about the man who upstaged ‘Paper Planes’ and M.I.A. in the album of 'Slumdog Millionaire' and came out with flying colors with his own contributions? AR Rahman, who is instrumental in the successful careers of many Indian directors like Mani Ratnam, Shankar and Ashuthosh Gowarikar, announced with 'Slumdog Millionaire' that he finally arrived in the West. His songs 'Jai Ho', "Ringa Ringa" and 'O Saaya' are brilliant but can not be counted as his best when compared to his other great compositions in Indian films. But his soundtrack for ‘Slumdog’ ('Mausam & Escape', 'Liquid Dance' and 'Latika’s theme') is undoubtedly the best music score of the year. Indians across the world can not wait to see the country's prodigal son accepting two Oscars ('Best Original Score' and 'Best Original Song') in one night and watch him perform 'Jai Ho' (with Sukhvinder Singh) and "O Saaya" (with fresh mom M.I.A.) live in Kodak theater on 22nd February 2009!
My predictions for Oscar night:
Best Picture: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’
Best Director: Danny Boyle ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Original Score: A.R. Rahman ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Original Song: “Jai Ho” ('Slumdog Millionaire') Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
Best Sound Mixing: Resul Pookutty, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Film Editing: Chris Dickens ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Sound Editing: Tom Sayers ('Slumdog Millionaire')
Best Actor: Mickey Rourke (“The Wrestler”)
Best Actress: Kate Winslet (“The Reader”)
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (“The Dark Knight”)
Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis (“Doubt”)
Best Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh ('In Bruges')
Best Animated Feature: 'Wall-E' Best
Foreign Language Film: 'Waltz with Bashir'
Best Art Direction: 'The Dark Knight'
Best Costume Design: Michael O’Connor ('The Duchess')
Best Makeup: Greg Cannom ('The Curious Case of Benjamin Button')
Best Visual Effects: Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron ('The Curious Case of Benjamin Button')
Prasad can be contacted at prasadnvn at yahoo dot com
click here for Prasad's article on Oscar Race 2007 |
