Have you heard about the monkeys claiming glory for the Oscar nominated documentary filmed in their forest ? You haven't ? Well, neither have I. I guess it just proves that monkeys are more intelligent than people like Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express. I am including the link for completeness sake but I would rather you don't read it. I read it just because Amitabh Bachchan included it on his Blog to prove some point.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hamara-slumdog/414546/
Whole point of this article is that there are people who consider Slumdog Millionaire to be a representation of Indian movies and more so because it is gaining the western world's attention, what with the golden globes, Oscars ET AL. Ms Gupta goes on to list some absurd reasons why its right to consider it Indian for good. She conveniently overlooks the fact that the movie is more of a western director's take than just Anil Kapoor's presence. Its more of a commercialised adaptation of a badly written novel by another Indian, although with an interesting premise. The movie is more about camera angles, dramatisation, director induced performances, AR Rahman's music etc. than just being based on an Indian backdrop.
In other words, its as Indian as Kalpana Chawla - whom we reclaimed as an Indian just because she was going some exceptionally distant places, all with American education and sponsorship.
People, its not for Indians, Of Indians or from Indians, its just about Indians. Even on that , it could very easily have been any other country with some poverty and vaguely aware of another western concept of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".
I guess the only Indian link worth being proud of is A R Rahman. He is a musical genius and has already been Internationally acknowledged for that more than once. An Oscar would just be another feather in his cap. Not that we need him to get that to recognise and appreciate his talent. I do subscribe to the notion that we do not need an Oscar to tell us which movies to like or a Grammy to inform on what music to listen. We should be comfortable with our own choice of entertainment and music without the western community to approve of it. With that logic, we've had our own movies depicting rags to riches with a lesson on morality (Shree 420, Raju Ban gaya gentleman, so on and so forth). Slumdog does it in a way that it can market and manage to catch eyeballs in the west is more of a seasonal flavour than Indian song and dance movies making their mark in world cinema.
As a matter of fact, as it turns out, Slumdog Millionaire isn't really making any Box Office history in India. So far, the only worthwhile action that we have taken in India to make it ours is that people have sued the movie for using the term Slumdog to be used in India's context. Now that's how we treat our very own movies - object against them !
2 comments:
Well I personally feel that we sound real big fools to be so happy about such a movie.
It is supposedely presenting an Indian face in the international community.
I liked the movie coz of its pace and cinematography however its a part of India, India has many more colours, n this colour being one of the darker shades. I would definitely not want India to be known in the world with such a tarnished image.
Its west approved and acclaimed coz thats how they would want to see India, it perfectly matches with the pictures of India in their minds. Why could the same community not appreciate "Taare Zamin Par" with the same amount of enthusiasm?
I agree with you that there is nothing for any Indian to be happy about its winning of awards, except for the people who are directly involved in this assignment. For the rest of us its a shame that we are not able to eradicate such trends followed in our society either by choice or helplessness.
very well said or should i say written!!
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