Now that AR Rahman has won the Golden Globe for his original score in Slumdog Millionaire the press is going to pump up "Slumdog" as the greatest thing since Gandhi. Triumph of the underdog India. Well Indians will always be the underdog especially when it comes to Hollywood. Like many of us I still haven’t seen the film and unlike many of us I have a few issues with the film.
Don't get too perturbed this is a common Indian phenomenon to have problems with things that we haven't experienced. Just like you accept feeling happy when anything that is remotely Indian wins some thing anywhere in the world, you must understand why some of us don't share the enthusiasm. First and foremost the biggest thing "Slumdog" got it wrong was the language. This is a story about the underdog in the most 'underdogest' place anywhere in the universe. Welcome to Dharavi. Everything smells here (according to Anil Kapoor on some excerpt I saw or heard a few days ago.) and yet the promo is full of people from all walks of life conversing in English. Would it have been too much for Danny Boyle to make this thing in Hindi and insert English subtitles? Or am I expecting too much for Boyle ain't no Alejandro González Iñárritu and this ain't Amores Perrros? Or couldn't he do an Ang Lee; make it Mandarin (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and release a dubbed version for Hollywood. I just feel that the essence would have been captured better.
One can look past this with some effort. Remember I haven't seen the film yet so appreciate my efforts. What I can't get over is that Boyle for some NRI actor to play the central character. In a country that has a film culture unlike any other and in a country of a billion people couldn't Team Slumdog and captain Boyle find one actor to fit the bill? You get an NRI to play a character from the world’s biggest slum and his English sounds beter than the host for the evening, Mr. Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor)! Bernardo Bertolucci sold so many magazine copies thanks to his interaction with Raju the slum dweller from Delhi when he was making Little Buddha. It's funny for Boyle decided to get master craftspeople from the Hindi film industry as companions on this journey of a lifetime but how could he get this little detail wrong beats me. All he needed to do was to sit at Cafe Coffee Day in Lokhandwala and he would have caused a riot of aspirants to portray Jamal. This in no way means disrespect to strugglers of Lokhandwala, of course.
Many people fear that, mirroring Attenborough’s Gandhi, the stupendous success of Slumdog would spark off a mad rush of foreigners rushing to the Indian shores to make a film or two about us. I don't fear that but one needs to realize that Sir Richard had this idea in the 1960's and nurtured the thought for twenty years before finally getting around immortalizing the Mahatma on celluloid. Danny Boyle also came down to Mumbai and experienced the Maximum City before embarking on Slumdog Millionaire. But there is a difference. Times have changed. No studio would have touched Sir Richard if he had decided to make the film in Hindi. I am willing to accept that studios could have influenced him to choose an unknown Indian-Brit called Ben Kingsley over a pucca desi Naseerudin Shah to play Gandhiji. Kingsley might be a royal pain to work with now (he insists on being addressed as Sir Ben while shooting) but this was before time. I don't think Boyle would have faced any problem putting "Slumdog" together. On the contrary the goras would have loved such an idea and had he been a little adamant he would have gotten some unknown Mumbaikar to play Jamal. Boyle was adamant at other places. He adamantly gave a Co-Director credit to Lovleen Tandon, the casting director, for the great work she did on Slumdog Millionaire. She couldn't find one Indian actor to play a slum dweller....
Oh what am I cribbing about...get over it!
There was a great deal of enthusiasm surrounding My Blueberry Nights. This was Wong Kar Wai's first American film. Some years ago this move would have meant that he has 'sold' out but that argument doesn't hold water anymore. Wong's reputation of being a master filmmaker precedes him. His demigod stature and cult following have made him one of the most closely watched filmmaker of recent times. So much so that Cannes had no problem showcasing a 20-minute version of his then work in progress 2046. Wong Kar Wai mesmerized the world with an extended trailer of a film that he had been working on for almost 4 years. My Blueberry Nights is the second Wong Kar Wai film that I have left midway. My brother had gone to China and upon his return he got a bunch of DVDs. His yardstick, when in doubt, was to pick up any DVD that had the festival wreath on the cover! He got 2046 but the DVD justified its cheap price, Rs. 40, and didn't have any English subtitles. Nevertheless the lush images were enough to whet one's appetite. A year or so later I finally laid my hands on 2046, I started watching it with great anticipation. This was Wong Kar Wai after In the Mood for Love. This was the film that was in the making for years and was shrouded in intrigue and mystery just like any Wong Kar Wai film. Twenty minutes into the film and I'd had enough of his bizarreness! It's been years now and I still haven't completed the film. Watching My Blueberry Nights was like 2046 all over. It’s the story of a woman whose boyfriend starts cheating on her. She finds a kindred spirit in a man who runs a diner and offers her advice along with a slice of blueberry pie. She suddenly (like most Wong Kar Wai characters) suddenly takes off to Memphis and starts working as a waitress. She meets a cop who just can't get over his ex-wife. The cop and the waitress indulge in some banter and that's where I gave up. The review says that she goes on to Reno and interacts with a poker player. She is, of course, doing all this to look for herself. My Blueberry Nights is laced with the typical markings of a Wong Kar Wai film- vivid colors, lushness, great camerawork and characters who are unable to live through the night. Herein lies the catch. Post 2046, for me, all these come across as usual WKW trappings. The first giveaway is the camerawork. Even though it's Darius Khondji who photographs the film instead of Wong regular Christopher Doyle, the cinematography could easily pass off as Doyale's. You would argue that Chris Doyle style is actually Wong Kar Wai signature. Maybe it's Wong Kar Wai, the auteur, at work but one can't help but get a feeling that it's the same film all over again. The characters still move in slow motion, the haunting music (Ry Cooder) seems like leftovers, the framing, the movement of the camera, the conversations, nothing seems good anymore! Is this a sign? Wong Kar Wai is definitely one of the most influential filmmakers. He made the mundane look exciting. He works without a script in the true sense; he takes his own sweet time to finish a film. The question one really needs to ask is weather it's possible for WKW to go on doing the same thing and yet not bore me to death? Revisiting the older Wong Kar Wai films, namely In The Mood for Love, Chunking Express, Happy Together, Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time and Fallen Angels, I have come to the conclusion that barring In The Mood For Love and Happy Together none have the same impact on me. The thing I understood while trying to watch My Blueberry Nights is that one shouldn't attempt the same thing again. More importantly something that works in one country and language might not really work in another. Why didn't this film work? Maybe because everyone swears by In the Mood for Love and even a blind person could make out it's the same film. Would this work if it were made in Cantonese or Mandarin? No. The same reason stands- they have already seen and loved In The Mood for Love. Ang Lee could have remade Brokeback Mountain for China but he didn't. Just as he'd not remake Lust, Caution in the US! One of the most respected filmmakers operating today, Lee can make a killing by remaking his English films in China and vice-versa. Imagine transporting 1970's American suburbia of The Ice Storm to 1960's Hong Kong. Lee would rather 'sell' out and do a Hulk instead of living the same nightmare again! As for Wong Kar Wai...give me a Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung walking in slow motion in rain to get some chow instead of a cocky Jude Law forcing a blueberry pie down Norah Jones's throat!
