Slumdog Millionaire
I didn't expect to like this movie, which made my experience all the brighter.
* * *
Slumdog Millionaire achieves a remarkable effect with an imperceptibly light touch: a bright, life-affirming sense of life, in an ugly, gritty world and amidst the harrowing conflicts the protagonist confronts. There is serious ugliness in the movie, but the overall atmosphere achieves lightness and love within the gravity and suspense. Perhaps similar can be said of Life Is Beautiful and Amelie.
But that's starting soft on Slumdog's virtues!
The movie is a character-based movie, so it stands or falls on the strength of Jamil's character. But Slumdog doesn't muddy the waters -- its theme is starkly simple: the success of a boy, innocent and benevolent, who is unswervingly and indomitably persistent.
The story is entirely foreshadowed in his early characterization: in a world of ugliness, and cornered and abused by the evil people around him, he gets locked in an outhouse right at the moment he desperately wants to be free. What does he do? Nevermind how disgusting the world around him is! He jumps straight into the shit and fights on, and comes out triumphant. How does the world respond? It immediately punishes him again. And yet, he persists; we see his lack of anger and vindictiveness -- and again he succeeds.
What kind of emotions does his world evoke in us? How dark is it? We see his evil brother as a foil, and we see the evil people around him, all of which are quite realistic. We ourselves feel anger, horror, and the hopelessness of his world. But Jamil persists seemingly unscarred. Toward the end even the girl he loves has given up and rejects him --- but he persists. And his strength is both their savior.
Jamil's strength, the theme of the movie, is communicated with further delicious detail: look at him. Look how mousy and simple, slender, how unchallenging and unaggressive his facial expressions are. Look at the big, famous TV star towering over him, playing with him like a cat with a mouse -- and the brightest light of this characterization, the nickname that sticks to him: The Chaiwalla, the tea-boy. A position even lesser than a bus boy in our culture. The exquisite characterization continues: we see his consistency repeatedly, in the face of so many challenges, so many insults.
The movie opens with this scene and continues returning to it: we see an inadequate, mousy, ungraceful boy, intimidated, scared, utterly outclassed by the TV game show host. In the end, with no tricks of camera or special effects, just the weight of the story's trajectory and Jamil's heroism, we see a lion.
Objectivists can do even better at specifying the heroism: it's beyond persistence. Jamil's heroism includes honesty and, dare I say it, psycho-epistemology: unflinching commitment to the simple facts of what he knows. Because there is no strategizing, no manipulation or poker playing in Jamil's repertoire, it brings his indomitable will into greater relief.
Yes, the storyline contains strokes of luck. Jamil is struck by bad luck over, and over, and over throughout his life. Even in his final episode of triumph he is struck by bad luck. The luck, you see, plays both ways -- as in real life. It's true that the magnitude of his triumph depended on a stroke of luck, but even this conclusion slights the real story we see.
Whatever luck we witnessed paled in comparison to the little boy, who in abject poverty and desperate circumstances shows benevolence and courage as a child, and then grows into a veritable freight train of willpower.
* * *
Slumdog Millionaire achieves a remarkable effect with an imperceptibly light touch: a bright, life-affirming sense of life, in an ugly, gritty world and amidst the harrowing conflicts the protagonist confronts. There is serious ugliness in the movie, but the overall atmosphere achieves lightness and love within the gravity and suspense. Perhaps similar can be said of Life Is Beautiful and Amelie.
But that's starting soft on Slumdog's virtues!
The movie is a character-based movie, so it stands or falls on the strength of Jamil's character. But Slumdog doesn't muddy the waters -- its theme is starkly simple: the success of a boy, innocent and benevolent, who is unswervingly and indomitably persistent.
The story is entirely foreshadowed in his early characterization: in a world of ugliness, and cornered and abused by the evil people around him, he gets locked in an outhouse right at the moment he desperately wants to be free. What does he do? Nevermind how disgusting the world around him is! He jumps straight into the shit and fights on, and comes out triumphant. How does the world respond? It immediately punishes him again. And yet, he persists; we see his lack of anger and vindictiveness -- and again he succeeds.
What kind of emotions does his world evoke in us? How dark is it? We see his evil brother as a foil, and we see the evil people around him, all of which are quite realistic. We ourselves feel anger, horror, and the hopelessness of his world. But Jamil persists seemingly unscarred. Toward the end even the girl he loves has given up and rejects him --- but he persists. And his strength is both their savior.
Jamil's strength, the theme of the movie, is communicated with further delicious detail: look at him. Look how mousy and simple, slender, how unchallenging and unaggressive his facial expressions are. Look at the big, famous TV star towering over him, playing with him like a cat with a mouse -- and the brightest light of this characterization, the nickname that sticks to him: The Chaiwalla, the tea-boy. A position even lesser than a bus boy in our culture. The exquisite characterization continues: we see his consistency repeatedly, in the face of so many challenges, so many insults.
The movie opens with this scene and continues returning to it: we see an inadequate, mousy, ungraceful boy, intimidated, scared, utterly outclassed by the TV game show host. In the end, with no tricks of camera or special effects, just the weight of the story's trajectory and Jamil's heroism, we see a lion.
Objectivists can do even better at specifying the heroism: it's beyond persistence. Jamil's heroism includes honesty and, dare I say it, psycho-epistemology: unflinching commitment to the simple facts of what he knows. Because there is no strategizing, no manipulation or poker playing in Jamil's repertoire, it brings his indomitable will into greater relief.
Yes, the storyline contains strokes of luck. Jamil is struck by bad luck over, and over, and over throughout his life. Even in his final episode of triumph he is struck by bad luck. The luck, you see, plays both ways -- as in real life. It's true that the magnitude of his triumph depended on a stroke of luck, but even this conclusion slights the real story we see.
Whatever luck we witnessed paled in comparison to the little boy, who in abject poverty and desperate circumstances shows benevolence and courage as a child, and then grows into a veritable freight train of willpower.