Oscar night! With multiple nominations, Slumdog Millionaire was sure to clinch a couple of them at least. When I left home to go to office today it had already won in 4 categories. As soon as I reached office an enthusiastic colleague dragged me straight to the cafeteria and the movie was discussed over a cup of coffee. He told me that Rehman had won the award for best music & best composition & best score & best sound mixing & 3-4 more categories. And since today happens to be Shivratri there will be the unquestionable divine intervention to bring in more awards for the movie. So he was sure that it will get at least 12 or 13 awards in total. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it had only 10 nominations in this Academy Awards. Others came in to my rescue and I quietly slipped out. Finally I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the grand score was 8…Pretty goodl.
I watched the movie sometime in December and started a blog which I could never finish (this is happening to too many of my blogs. If someone is interested in ghost writing, pls let me know) It was clear that SdM was Oscar material. My belief was reinforced when it made an entry on imdb ranked around 40 in top 250 films ever made. By the time I tried to finish the blog there were too many views about the movie already n it became meaningless for me to finish it. This article about the movie is a favorite of mine. There have been contradicting views about the movie and mostly negative views about what it portrays India as. Although it shows (not highlights) the side of India that we are aware of, but try to ignore…. I just loved the movie. A very simple theme, no load to the brain and yet heart touching. The kids have played their roles exceptionally well and the others fit into their roles quite well too. The dance sequence at the end of the movie is very cute but looked almost as if it was a mockery of Bollywood. Although the tune ‘Jai ho’ is quite catchy, I must say with all honesty that it is not Rehman’s best work. It is just that the song made a bigger impact in Hollywood where it’s rare to have a song in a movie.
This certainly is a feather in the cap for the Indian film Industry (Many from our industry have been a part of the movie…off screen too)…the music industry at least. The pride of having raked in so many Oscars shows….with people throwing in a couple of awards from personal capacities like my colleague did. But for an average person this pride comes along with a slight bitter taste. I have a feeling that in India the glory of having won the awards will outlive the movie itself; a movie that most will be in a hurry to forget and just highlight the laurels that it received.
I was trying to dig out info about who Danny Boyle was. I was shocked to find out that he is also the director of a very unheard kinda movie “The Beach”. If someone remembers...the movie features the very scenic beaches of Thailand and an amazing sound track by Moby. The book is as amazing as the movie was pathetic! The movie was a very poor adaptation of the book. I guess Mr. Boyle does learn from his mistakes. SdM transpired very well.
Vikas Swarup - An unheard of Indian Author came into limelight. It wouldn’t be a great surprise if one of the local directors is knocking on his doors for the rights of his other book –Six suspects. Book stores including footpath hawkers are doing brisk business selling his books. It was not too long ago that I could not find the book even on http://www.flipkart.com/!
All said and done…. The awards were well deserved! Hats off to the entire team.
Jai Ho!
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