Monday, February 23, 2009

Slumdog (no?) Surprise

Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars with 8 wins! Wow! It was a fantastic movie and deserved every accolade it has received. I'm very proud that a film made in India, with a large part of the crew and cast as Indians has won Oscars. I wish everyone would let it rest at this sweet taste of victory for a great movie which was about India and made in some part by Indians. 
But it won't rest there. It never has. The press and the khadi-clad activists (last standing upholders of our sanskriti and samskar) will have a field week, month or year perhaps...
The great sense of national pride that was deemed lost when Jamal jumped into a shithole to make it to Amitabh has no doubt been restored, nay doubly replaced by 8 shiny Oscars. 

Another thought that has always got me a bit pissed is how people always want to associate ourselves with the success of unrelated folks using ridiculous threads. Take for example desi rockers who pride themselves on the fact that Freddy Mercury was in fact born Farukh Balsara in Parsi Colony in Mumbai. SO WHAT!
Another one that gets my goat everytime is "we invented zero".  It's been approximately 2500 years now. Can we move on to a new source of national mathematical pride?
Of course the question is where do you draw the line between distant relation to the event and not so distant.....any thoughts?

1 comment:

saytonsays said...

Anna'a' (note the strategic use of the extra 'a' - Ashoka(a) posting a comment was awesome btw),
Adding my $0.02 here.
I think the movie was good - very well made - slick music and direction and a well woven story. However, I am tempted to think that had this been made by an Indian director, with a completely Indian crew - would it have gotten all the limelight. If we want to go down the ability route methinks we have enough talent in our film industry to create much more meaningful cinema with a lesson in there and a feel good factor as well. The very fact that we are rejoicing in the triumph of this movie is testimony to the fact that we long for that recognition at a stage which is built by the Amereekis for the Amereekis and is of the Amereekis...Hollywood that is. Its not a world stage (analogy - World Super Bowl - damn it you are the only guys who friggin play it - although I love the sport). The movie did win at Cannes and at BAFTA which is great, but would it have gotten the same recognition if this was made by an Indian - probably not is my guess. The advantage we have now is that the world (aka Amreeka) has finally taken notice of the talent that exists in Bollywood and now films from the genre of the Pahelis and the Om Shanti Oms will not go for the Oscars - or at least my wishful thinking tends me to go in that direction. Hopefully this will give the real talent a reason to be recognised (Rahman and Resul...hopefully some good directors as well). So we can stand up and take a bow - but the Satyajit Ray Oscar would mean more, at least to me it does.
One of the conversations that I heard which was potent with the Bollywood mentality was ”Whats the hype about Slumdog Millionaire – f*&k that – some dog is a millionaire and it does not effect me”. Rather than taking that route if our film industry could take this as a challenge it would be more conducive.
BTW…I am going to write to John Grogan – inspired as I am by the Majestic Grogan of Churchill. The Story of My Assasins is next.

And also...I have lost my writing-comments-on-blogs virginity with this comment - all for you Anna'A'.

Cheers !