On Saturday night I finally managed to watch 'Slumdog Millionaire'. I'd really wanted to see it at the cinema, but never managed to solve the logistical problem of my two small children, so I was very excited to finally be watching it on DVD.
I had tried to avoid reading too much about it before seeing it, but when a film wins several Oscars it's hard to avoid hearing anything about it. So I had got the impression that its Oscar triumph had partly been ascribed to the fact that it is an uplifting triumph-of-the-underdog kind of film which had gone down well in the credit crunch. I also could see from the DVD box that the News of the World had described it "the feel-good movie of the decade".
I was therefore rather startled by the film itself. I don't know what makes the News of the World reviewer feel good or makes Oscar voters feel uplifted, but a film that deals with orphans, grinding poverty, child exploitation and domestic violence seems like an odd choice to me. On reflection, of course, I should have remembered that it is a Danny Boyle movie and that he also made 'Shallow Grave', 'Trainspotting', '28 Days Later' and 'Sunshine'. I liked all of these films very much but they all harrow the emotions of the viewer. In retrospect, a feel-good Danny Boyle film is a contradiction in terms.
Having watched it, I was then curious to find out what the popular critical reception of the film had been. I found that it is a film that has stirred up controversy in India (which is a polite way of saying that some Indians were not thrilled with the way Boyle represented their country). I was particularly interested to come across this article by Mukul Kesavan:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090205/jsp/opinion/story_10485740.jsp
Kesavan points out that the first third of the film - when the children are very young - is predominantly in Hindi. However, when the children grow up they start to speak English with no explanation, and that English is then used even in scenes where it makes no logical sense. Kesavan also makes the point that the older Jamal "speaks English with the accent you’d expect from a boy raised in England" and that the actor in question has been chosen because he can "supply a cosmopolitan audience with a protagonist they can identify with, a lovable slumdog who cleans up well".
I haven't managed to think all of this through yet, but here are some initial thoughts:
1. As this controversy suggests, the question of audience is pretty important when considering language variety in film. While the languages used created a very jarring effect for Kesavan, on my initial viewing it hadn't occurred to me that Jamal suddenly jumped from being a Hindi-speaking orphan to speaking near Standard English.
2. I came across one account on the internet that suggested that the initial plan had been that the child actors in the early scenes would speak English, but that Boyle had found that this made it impossible to shoot the scenes in the way he wanted. He therefore persuaded the film studio to let him film the early scenes in Hindi. In other words, from a production point of view (and in the context of Western cinema) what is unusual is the Hindi scenes not the English scenes.
3. Kesavan accuses the film of using Hindi as 'authenticating décor' and suggests that the film would have been less jarring if English had been used throughout. However, as (2) suggests, Boyle found it impossible to get the performances he wanted from the children in English. Given that Boyle seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to cast real slum children in the film, I'm guessing that the performances were deemed insufficiently naturalistic in English. So for an English director and audience, the use of Hindi in the film signals the film's authenticity. For an Indian commentator, however, the early use of Hindi only serves to point up the inauthenticity of the language later in the film. Hmmm.
So is this irresponsible filmmaking? Is the use of Hindi or English inauthentic in the film? What would have been a better option?
I had tried to avoid reading too much about it before seeing it, but when a film wins several Oscars it's hard to avoid hearing anything about it. So I had got the impression that its Oscar triumph had partly been ascribed to the fact that it is an uplifting triumph-of-the-underdog kind of film which had gone down well in the credit crunch. I also could see from the DVD box that the News of the World had described it "the feel-good movie of the decade".
I was therefore rather startled by the film itself. I don't know what makes the News of the World reviewer feel good or makes Oscar voters feel uplifted, but a film that deals with orphans, grinding poverty, child exploitation and domestic violence seems like an odd choice to me. On reflection, of course, I should have remembered that it is a Danny Boyle movie and that he also made 'Shallow Grave', 'Trainspotting', '28 Days Later' and 'Sunshine'. I liked all of these films very much but they all harrow the emotions of the viewer. In retrospect, a feel-good Danny Boyle film is a contradiction in terms.
Having watched it, I was then curious to find out what the popular critical reception of the film had been. I found that it is a film that has stirred up controversy in India (which is a polite way of saying that some Indians were not thrilled with the way Boyle represented their country). I was particularly interested to come across this article by Mukul Kesavan:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090205/jsp/opinion/story_10485740.jsp
Kesavan points out that the first third of the film - when the children are very young - is predominantly in Hindi. However, when the children grow up they start to speak English with no explanation, and that English is then used even in scenes where it makes no logical sense. Kesavan also makes the point that the older Jamal "speaks English with the accent you’d expect from a boy raised in England" and that the actor in question has been chosen because he can "supply a cosmopolitan audience with a protagonist they can identify with, a lovable slumdog who cleans up well".
I haven't managed to think all of this through yet, but here are some initial thoughts:
1. As this controversy suggests, the question of audience is pretty important when considering language variety in film. While the languages used created a very jarring effect for Kesavan, on my initial viewing it hadn't occurred to me that Jamal suddenly jumped from being a Hindi-speaking orphan to speaking near Standard English.
2. I came across one account on the internet that suggested that the initial plan had been that the child actors in the early scenes would speak English, but that Boyle had found that this made it impossible to shoot the scenes in the way he wanted. He therefore persuaded the film studio to let him film the early scenes in Hindi. In other words, from a production point of view (and in the context of Western cinema) what is unusual is the Hindi scenes not the English scenes.
3. Kesavan accuses the film of using Hindi as 'authenticating décor' and suggests that the film would have been less jarring if English had been used throughout. However, as (2) suggests, Boyle found it impossible to get the performances he wanted from the children in English. Given that Boyle seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to cast real slum children in the film, I'm guessing that the performances were deemed insufficiently naturalistic in English. So for an English director and audience, the use of Hindi in the film signals the film's authenticity. For an Indian commentator, however, the early use of Hindi only serves to point up the inauthenticity of the language later in the film. Hmmm.
So is this irresponsible filmmaking? Is the use of Hindi or English inauthentic in the film? What would have been a better option?
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