Jai Ho – but whose?

Apr 7th, 2009 | By | Category: Articles
SDMOn February 22, 2009 Slum Dog Millionaire won eight out of ten academy awards it was nominated for. The categories it won in included Best Picture, Best Director, Music (Song), Music (Score), Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Cinematography and Writing (Best Adapted Screenplay). It was a first of it’s kind, as no movie from India had achieved such a feat before. Although it must be admitted that Slum Dog Millionaire can’t be called a completely Indian movie as it was directed by British director Danny Boyle, who has previously directed movies like 28 Days Later, A Life Less Ordinary and Trainspotting.The inevitable question that arose in the minds of many after the awards night was : “Did Slum Dog Millionaire really deserve to win eight Oscar awards?”

Whatever we might say now, it must be accepted that the answer that mattered was the answer given by the jury at the Oscars – they decided that it deserved to win and it did. It was their opinion that counted, and they made sure that Slum Dog Millionaire got its share of awards.

However, we asked our readers what they thought was the reason behind the success of Slum Dog Millionaire. Here is what they said:

Slum Dog millionaire
Surprisingly, 52 % of the people that voted attributed Slum Dog Millionaire’s success to the western opinion of Indian slums. In fact even Amitbah Bachchan, one of the most loved stars of Indian film industry, wrote about the movie on his blog and said:

If SM projects India as Third World dirty under belly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky under belly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations. Its just that the SM idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not.

The majority seems to agree with Mr. Bachchan.About 27 % of the people attributed Slum Dog Millionaire’s success to Danny Boyle’s direction. Danny Boyle is known for directing some good films in the past, so this does not come as a surprise. The added advantage in the movie was the well wriiten script by Simon Beaufoy. The story of the movie is based on the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup. However, Simon made some subtle changes to the story to make it more suitable for a movie, and this seemed to have gone down well with the audience.

Only 2 % of the people who voted felt that good acting had anything to do with the success of Slum Dog Millionaire. Without commenting on the acting, it must be said that every actor seemed to fit well into the character, he or she was playing.

(Do you agree with the majority, or do you have some other opinion?)

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Neo is an engineering professional by day who takes on the mantle of a writer during the night. He started writing his first book at the age of fifteen. That book never saw the light of day, but, he says, writing that book made him realise that writing is something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He hopes that one day he is able to quit his day job, and become a full time writer. If you like this post, you can follow Neo on Twitter

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