If in the end you got tired of the shouting and clapping and whistling in front of TV screens, of the tears and smiles and exclamations, of the homage and adulation and jubilation, think how much larger than hype it must have been in the slums of Mumbai that, on Monday morning in India, were elevated to iconic status and global recognition. The eight Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire have been claimed by Indians as their own even though the film that has raked $100 million in collections worldwide is British-made and from a Hollywood stable, albeit with a Bollywood soul.
Slumdog has many unlikely heroes — a diplomat writer who wrote Q&A as a lark, a jug-eared kid who looks more likely to be kicking a football in the neighbourhood park than lighting up the neighbourhood screen, a less-than-likely heroine whose off-screen presence has been more electrifying than on screen, slum children who are real slum children, a Bollywood star past his sell-by date who struck gold when King Khan turned down the role, and A R Rahman & Co who, according to many, are the real stars and have shown the world why Bollywood cannot have enough of musicals, because the music is so good…
India’s Slumdog moment has come at a time when its belief in itself is eroding on the downslide of an economy that can’t seem to get it right any more. It has also come at a time when cinema fare has become more experimental, when actors are no longer chocolate-box heroes and candy floss heroines, when directors with small budgets but ambitious vision are making unlikely movies for the box office. Not all of them have succeeded, but there’s enough to suggest a turn in the fortunes of the world’s largest film industry on the basis of merit, good storytelling and captive cinema audiences.
But most of all, the resounding success of Slumdog is a nod to what Bollywood has been accused of making mindlessly for decades on end — its escapist fare. Slumdog is as escapist as they come, its central protagonist rising from the deep bowels of a slum to win the big ticket to fortune, a fantasy tale where, despite abject poverty, everyone wears a smile like a badge. More than escapism, however, it is an acknowledgement of the powerhouse of talent available in India: superb actors (in impossible roles acted convincingly), prodigious musical ability, great storytelling, and the potential of cinema to cross geographies and surmount the hindrances of language and culture.
Recent investments by Indian business houses in studios in Los Angeles, attempts by the leading lights of Hindi cinema to cross over to Hollywood, to get international stars in Indian productions, have kept both the pink and the yellow press in a tizzy. Some years ago, director Shekhar Kapur, who has made films in India and Hollywood, had said global cinema would need to address the needs of the growing global populations of China and India. China had its moment with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon acknowledging its version of cinematic aesthetics. Slumdog Millionaire’s red carpet to Indian sensibilities will likely hasten the exchange between Hollywood and Bollywood. And just like the world couldn’t get enough of our beauty queens some years ago, it’s just possible that we will flood the dream factories of the world with our stars and stories. Let the drum rolls begin.
