I came up with this one when an NGO was looking for a blogger to write on media and entertainment in India for a global audience, and was asking for samples from prospective ones. Needless to say they looked somewhere else...
The last few months have been spent mirthfully observing the various reactions to the movie Slumdog Millionaire. When I finally got to see it I found it enjoyable, a little over-the-top but relevant with its message of hope, and with its fair share of loopholes but definitely not deserving the kind of criticism it has received in the media.
The funniest reactions, the ones that left me rolling on the floor, were those by the ones who felt that the movie shows that slums is all that India has got and thus misrepresents and generalizes us. Well, I don’t think the movie ever tries to show that there isn’t much else to India than slums (and the Taj Mahal), but even if it would have, it can’t be singled out for this criticism of generalizing us. After all, a long running soap on Indian television that depicted extra-marital affairs and scheming individuals, had the dastardly daring of calling itself Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii (loosely translated to “The Story of Every Household”). Didn’t hear anyone protesting then, did we? So is it that because Slumdog was made by foreigners, and that hurt us more? Or is it that, no matter what the producers of that TV show claim, not too many people were aware of it, unlike this movie?
Javed Akhtar, one of the most celebrated lyricists and story-writers in Mumbai filmdom for decades, has called Hindi cinema a separate state in India, a distinct culture, alongside Gujarati, Bengali, Kerali, Marathi, etc. This stunning insight is taken up by Ramachandra Guha in his masterpiece history of post-independence India (India after Gandhi, Picador India, 2007) as one of the contributors to India’s survival through 6 decades of turmoil and fragmentative tendencies. The people in the country are divided by multiple languages, religions, castes, customs, sub-cultures, classes, educational backgrounds etc but share this one common passion. Even cricket is not as popular as movies are in India, no matter what the media says in the wake of the recent attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. It follows logically therefore that the immense reach that films possess can be utilized for progress and enlightenment. Could Slumdog possibly end up being one such?
Looking at some of the more popular “message movies” in Hindi in recent times – the number of non-resident Indians returning home after Shah Rukh Khan’s Swades might not have increased (everybody doesn’t have a Gayatri Joshi waiting for them back home) and youths have (thankfully, whichever way one looks at it) not started assassinating corrupt politicians after Aamir Khan’s Rang De Basanti – but there were several silent protests à la Sanjay Dutt’s Lage Raho Munnabhai, a movie that innovatively revived Mahatma Gandhi’s methods of getting your point across and convincing your opponents without resorting to muscle-power. But the overall impression one gets is that film-makers in India have largely ignored the power that they wield. One would hope that this was due to commercial compulsions rather than a lack of intent.
Also, film-makers tread a very thin line. They don’t want their movie to seem pedantic and – God forbid – downright educational, that will just cut off a large section of the audience who go to the movies to be entertained, period. Consequently, the movie might not get made in the first place. Making entertaining “message movies” is a tough enough job but it has been done, especially by Hollywood: Schindler’s List and The Shawshank Redemption are the best that I have seen, with A Beautiful Mind not too far behind. Each of these movies depicts the importance – and the ultimate triumph – of hope and of fighting against all odds. Slumdog falls in the same category, and it is probably the most entertaining (and least cerebral) of these four and also has the least running time at 120 minutes (Schindler being the longest at 195 minutes as per imdb.com). All four, interestingly, were based on previously published books (Shawshank was based on a short-story), two of them based on real events. None of these books were half as popular as the movie though. Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark did win the Booker, but I needed several sittings to get through the book. On the other hand, I’ve seen the movie at least half a dozen times and am sure to watch it several more times till my time is done. It is this power that the film-maker holds over the writer – the differences in the media and the larger target audience. Slumdog certainly benefits from this. Must say though that the upcoming film adaptations of Shantaram and Life of Pi – two more India-based succeed-against-all-odds books – have a lot to live up to!
Due to the current economic scenario, with people losing their jobs and homes all over the world, Slumdog has been called a very well-timed film, and this has been given as one of the main reasons for the movies success at the Academy Awards. Personally, a movie that gives the message of hope is one for all seasons – also, the storylines of the Depression-time Best Picture winners had nothing to do with economic down times per se. This would suggest that a good movie would do well, no matter what the prevailing circumstances are. And this is only on the evidence of blockbuster Hollywood movies, the list would surely be much longer if one adds movies made in Europe, South America and Asia.
Coming back to films made here in India, I feel that those who have tried to give a message through their movies have tended to fall into the trap of sounding elitist. While the likes of V. Shantaram & Satyajit Ray and even Raj Kapoor always managed to keep their films deep-rooted with the realities of their time, the same cannot be said of most socially relevant films made more recently. Such films have tended to give their message with a rather high-handed, holier-than-thou attitude, diluting the message in the process. This is probably a result of the fact that there are so many Indias within the country currently, each dependent and consequent of the others but not completely aware of the others’ existence, much less their hopes and desires. Thus, even though movies like Rahul Dholakia’s Parzania are made and appreciated, there will always be arguments that they don’t show all the sides of the coin – another challenge for the makers of socially relevant films.
Global economic downturn notwithstanding, salaried yuppies continue to thrive, and small businesses that serve the domestic market will continue to do brisk business as long as growth continues - even at the toned-down 5 %. However, inclusive growth remains a distant dream; so much so that even mainstream cinema has mostly reflected the shining version of India. A rather cynical explanation that has been heard for this is that those doing well don’t want to know about those that aren’t, and those who are on the threshold of subsistence want to watch movies that show their dreams not their realities. Very few mainstream movies in the recent past have depicted the aspirations of rural folk – worth mentioning are Nagesh Kukunoor’s Iqbal and Shyam Benegal’s Welcome to Sajjanpur (of which the former had better performances and was overall the better package, not just because it had cricket as its central theme). Otherwise, it has been left to filmmakers making movies in regional languages to deal with these topics, where the audience is a fraction of that of a mainstream Bollywood movie.
The greatest recognition that a film in India can get is a mention by its politicians. With awards season just concluded, and election season upon us, Slumdog’s domination continues. Opposition parties have sarcastically started giving credit for the movie to the ruling party (without whose efforts slums, and therefore this movie, would not have been possible). While this debate probably has no final winner, it is a very good sign for those hoping that the movie will not end up being just an entertainer but actually go on to make a difference – hopefully even to the complete eradication of slums and better dwellings for the unfortunate ones. It is not the first movie about life in the slums (Salaam Bombay is its most celebrated predecessor, but we recently got to read that it didn’t manage to change the lives of even the kids who acted in it), but it has a lot going in its favour. Most importantly, the message is given in an extremely subtle manner, almost subliminally, with the viewer never suspecting that s/he is imbibing the value of not giving up hope. Jamal could have graduated from petty crime to the life of an underworld crook like his brother Salim, but he chooses not to. It is this same value of choice that J. K. Rowling (bless her) has imbibed on millions of kids with her Harry Potter books – the best example of entertaining instructors ever, these books are. If more filmmakers are able to hide their message beneath layers of entertainment, Slumdog would have performed a most valuable service – made its protagonist species extinct.
