Shadow play - iphone art
Glad tidings, peace & love on this HanuChristmaKwanza
with an Om Shanti for good measure!
Slumdog Millionaire requires a strong stomach and a strong heart
If you don’t have a strong stomach, don’t bother with Slumdog Millionaire. If you have a strong stomach AND a strong heart, this may be one of your favorite movies of 2008. It is now, one of mine.
It’s Christmas time in the cinema. All the good movies are out or coming out. Oscar is waiting in the wings for his darlings to embrace him.
I am embracing Slumdog Millionaire. I have yet to see some of the top shelf films but at this point, I’d give this movie every award.
Almost any movie that is shot in India is inevitably filled with color. (Think Monsoon Wedding) In Slumdog, the palette is oranges, reds, yellows and golds waving like fabric against cardboard and tin huts in the ghetto. Miles and miles of them.
Clothes washing, bathing and swimming in polluted water. Shoeless, brown- skinned children chasing each other at the dump over mounds and mounds of garbage.
Squalor like most westerners have never seen close up.
Slumdog Millionaire is about, Jamal, one of the unlucky boys who grew up in the Mumbai ghetto. Ghetto being a word too small to capture the vastness of this place. Early in the movie we witness the set up of the boy’s life. Abject poverty, mother loss, he and his sometimes devious brother, Salim, ( I mean seriously devious) against the world.
Then we fast forward to the miraculous event in the boy’s life where he becomes a winning contestant on India’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” show. But, how is it possible that this “slumdog” young man who serves tea for a living can know all the show’s answers?
Swept away by thugs following his first night of winning, “authorities” try to beat an explanation out of him. He must be cheating.
Here’s the most masterful part of the movie. Jamal, who has been through way too much for this torture session to have much of an effect on him, takes his interrogators through horrendous episodes in his life where he lived the answers to the questions on “Millionaire.”
Superimposed in these scenes is the recurrent attention to a particular girl, Latika, to whom Jamal, is devoted since early childhood. It is this love, maybe the only constant in his life ,that provides the motivation that got him to the tv set and likely gave him a reason to live at all.
The story is painful. There are a lot of scenes where I was forced to look away. But, the beauty of it is equally impactful. Upon leaving the theatre I felt myself exhale for the first time in nearly two hours and was exhausted from holding all of the muscles in my body in a vice grip.
The characters are beautiful as children and as adults. The contrasting choice of paths chosen by the brothers, stunning.
There’s some basic good and evil stuff. Love conquering all. But, never did I think the messages were trite.
It’s how they’re told that I find so remarkable.
I probably won’t be able to watch Slumdog Millionaire twice but I strongly urge you to see it once.
It’s storytelling at its very best.
Just remember, strong stomach, strong heart. No daring new foods before you go!
Stick to plain old popcorn and you should be fine.
Comments (2)Ain’t no snow about it
It's Christmas time in the tropics - fa la la la la
Have yourself a merry little memoir - the art (?) of holiday letters
Holiday letters. Mini-memoirs.
What a great idea!
Are your cards out already? Silly question, but if you’re an ambivalent card sender (my apologies friends and family) you may still have time to do something outside of your holiday protocol.
Holiday letters are at worst boring or annoying and at best they are a delight to read. Hopefully, your life has been interesting enough over the last year (and if you’ve never done one, your entire existence) to present in an attractive literary package.
If not, don’t even think about it. Trust Hallmark.
The writers out there can kill two birds with one stone (ouch) with this not so original but card-alternative idea. Especially if you’re in a writing slump and haven’t felt inspired, the holiday letter can be a great exercise. And, should it be readable, your recipients will feel properly holiday-acknowledged.
Worst case scenario: don’t send it. (Sort of like a post break-up letter, or hate mail that you write for mental health purposes but not actually for consumption - oh, sorry, am I alone in this endeavor??)
Your story. Really think about the highlights that others will want to know about. Be amusing or touching or both, but take time to edit yourself. Are you thinking of writing a memoir? Have you already written one? Consider this a bite size “year in the life” tome for your posse.
Be careful. Some people, including yours truly, often perceive the holiday letter as impersonal. In a way, it is. How you can attempt to overcome this objection is to be REALLY entertaining. Or dramatic. But try to pull in your audience with your holiday musings.
Don’t include Aunt Mary if you can’t find a place for cousin Walter. Don’t want to offend anyone.
Not that family members really behave like that.
I feel like Martha Stewart trying to turn some small household item into a masterpiece. Perfecting the ordinary potholder into fiber art. In this case, the manufactured message into poetry.
Make it short. Don’t expect anyone to care THAT MUCH about your life. At least not as much as you do.
And, don’t think you can use your letter to replace an actual gift. Remember, it’s the card you’re replacing. Don’t be cheap!
Holiday greetings to all of you out there and specifically, Happy Chanukah to my fellow tribes-people.
May your world be filled with an abundance of love and light.
And, happy little memoire-ettes.
p.s. tell me how you feel about holiday letters? Do you have a particularly quirky, verbose or memorable one to share?
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