Raising from the slums with a great work of art!!!!

Slumdog Millionaire (2008): a short review (kind of)



Years back, I read a book by an obscure Colombian writer named Héctor Rojas Herazo. “Respirando el verano” (“Breathing the Summer”), a short novel of about one hundred pages or so, is nonetheless a literary gem from one of the less-famous members of the Latin American Literary Boom.

Rojas Herazo, with the hand of a true literary master, weaves a series of events with genuine linguistic craftsmanship to create a piece of work I found to be a delight to read.

In one instance, the writer describes a woman urinating in front of her house. But in the hands of Rojas Herazo the event of an old woman pissing on a dusty front patio in the midst of a hot summer day losses the comfortable anchor of a routine domestic occurrence. The text obviates that descent into inhumanity and dementia and acquires poetic transcendence. By virtue of the written word the sordid gesture is vested with epic tenure.

There is a sequence in Slumdog Millionaire, a movie by British director Danny Boyle, which is at once poignant, raw and funny, and possesses the same esthetic and sub-textual properties of a Rojas Herazo work.

Our young Indian hero Jamal Malik, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is locked by his mischievous brother in a shanty latrine wobbling on wooden stilts over a pool of filth, just as India’s big-screen hero arrives in the slums by helicopter.

Not wanting to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip, Jamal dives feet first into the excrement down bellow clutching in his hand a photo of the movie star he keeps in his pocket held up high and safe from getting soiled.

The short anecdotic scene, vital to the dramatic arc of the protagonist, is definitely an iconic cinematographic moment, one that illustrates the mastery of its director.

That filth-covered kid parted the packed crowd of rabid fans like a Red Sea of onlookers pinching their noses with disgust. In that fleeting moment, young Jamal’s action stop being what it is to become a metaphor for opportunity. His character embodies the theory that there are opportunities to be had in every situation in life. Literarily covered in shit from head to toe, Jamal was the only one capable of reaching the coveted star and getting his autograph on a worn out, yet clean photograph.

Collecting praise and awards all over the world, besides its dramatic setting and some tragic events portrayed, Slumdog Millionaire overflows with optimism, a welcomed sight in these times of economic crisis and fear. I highly recommend you all check it out.