“Doctors, lawters never past 16,000 rupees… he’s at 10 million. What can a slumdog possibly know?”Director: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan (co-director, India)
Saw in twice in a short week, pulsing, vibrant, a shoulder shake and complete satisfaction. Perhaps it was just the chances but the audiences both nights were strangely responsive, completely engrossed with every up and down, fast paced, drummed tracking shot or eerie, cruel-word reality seemingly caught on film. After I had dabbled in Bollywood and seen The Darjeeling Limited enough times to burn it on my retinas I was pretty resigned to the fact that it is not difficult to produce something aesthetically astounding out of India -- the colors, smells, noises, an assault of energy with the tease and exotics of the east that always gets us -- ying yang tattoos, ruby sticker bindis, etc. etc. The cinematography for Slumdog was really something though, and constantly checked with the AR Rahman soundtrack with flecks of old and new and M.I.A. -- my god. I do admit, the film carries a healthy amount of those movie-style lines and contented twists, but come one people, we need those now and again, we really, really do.
2 Final Points:
(1) I love when movies involve an aging character and the multiple actors cast to play the various ages work ridiculously well with grace and conviction. Slumdog Millionaire does this.
(2) Despite everything, the end credits involve a full-cast classic choreographed dance, which is just rad.
