It’s All Maya!

For all of you Slumdog fans, don’t get on my case just because I’m not on the bandwagon with everyone else!  Yesterday Patrick and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire.  After reading all the wonderful things written about this film, I was confident that we would not be disappointed, and disappointed we weren’t, but I can’t say I was ecstatic either!

As in every “Once Upon a Time….” fairytale, there has to be a hero - Jamal, a  princess - Latika, a villian (three in this case) - Prem, Maman, and Javed, and a not so nice sidekick - Jamal’s brother Salim, who repents and sacrifices himself to get rid of two of the three villians so the hero and the princess can live happily ever after. Slumdog Millionaire follows the storyline to a tee in this Bollywood film.
 
For the very few who don’t yet know the plot, I’ll sum it up very briefly by saying that Slumdog Millionaire is about a young illiterate guy from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on the popular game show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  With each question being asked in front of a studio audience and millions of television viewers, there are flashbacks in the young protagonist’s difficult life that carries the answer to each question.  As Jamal Malik answers question after question correctly, and as the money he is winning continues to grow to an astronomical sum for most people in India, he is suspected of being a fraud.  How can a kid with no formal education know the answers to these questions?  At the start of the film Jamal is questioned and tortured by the police who are adamant in getting to the bottom of this, therefore we have flashbacks to the game show as well as flashbacks to Jamal’s childhood.

The best part of the film in my eyes are the magnificent, yet harrowing, shots of the slums of Mumbai in all its explosion of colors and misery and the roles played by the three youngest children.  Jamal Malik as a young boy played by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, his brother Salim played by Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, and Latika, the young girl that Jamal falls in love with, played by Rubina Ali are the reasons why the movie is good.
 
There have been questions about why the two stars of the film, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, playing the roles of Jamal and Latika grownup, were not nominated as Best Actor and Best Actress, but after seeing the film, I’m not surprised.  Although their roles were considered the starring roles, the reality is, theirs were supporting roles to the small children!

More importantly after seeing this film, I learned that two of the six child actors were actually children from the slums of Mumbai and were paid an obscenely little amount of money for their work!  Azharuddin (who played Salim) was only paid £1,700 ($2429) for his role while Rubina who played Latika, only received £500 ($714) for one month of work on the film!  What’s more heartbreaking and disturbing is both children are still living in shacks in the slums of Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai!  Why?!!!

This film cost $14 million to make and is now making hundreds of millions of dollars world-wide!  Why are these two children still living in these horrible conditions?  According to ABC News and the Telegraph little Azharuddin’s small hut that he shares with his father was demolished by authorities and the two of them now sleep under a sheet of plastic and tarp.  If that’s not bad enough, Azhar’s father suffers from tuberculosis.  Rubina’s situation is not much better.

If I had known this before seeing the film, I would have boycotted the movie for the unjustice done to these two children!  According to Danny Boyle, the director and Christian Colson, the producer, they say that a trust has been set up for both Rubina and Azhar for their education, however they won’t say how much is in the trust.

Maya Muses:  My question is why keep these talented young children living in these conditions when it isn’t necessary for them or their families?  I was outraged when on the Red Carpet Danny Boyle was asked about the young stars being taken out of the slums just to attend the Oscars.  The question completely went over Boyle’s head and he answered as though nothing was wrong and said, (I’m paraphrasing) “Oh yes, and have you seen the kids all dressed up in their little tuxedoes and the girls in their cute little dresses?”

Yeah, right Mr. Boyle, and after a few days of royal treatment in Hollywood, these children will then be taken back to India and be dumped once again into the horrible slums and squalor as though it had all been a wonderful dream, while you’ll be sitting on your millions!

I say boycott this film until justice is done for these children!  Besides, if you ask me, I think The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a better film than Slumdog Millionaire!

Photo Credits:  Google Images