Mar 8, 2009

Movie lovers team (Feb 09) - Slumdog Millionaire


What I would like to share after watching Slumdog Millionaire,



This movie vividly depicted the life of slum children in developing countries. Besides, it showed the extreme of religion beliefs; systemic and inhuman use of children labor, social inequality and injustice, etc. What in short is that how development created opportunities as well as different social problems in parallel.

I remembered clearly many scenes of this movie. If I have to choose one scene that is the most touching, I will pick the one when Jamal Malik gave US$100 to his former friend, whose eyes had been taken away by the guardian previously, in the tunnel. Several feelings incidentally blinked in my mind,

How cold blooded the guardian was, he did it so systemically and without any guilty. He only used several minutes to ruin the sight, the trust and the dream of the children, damaging the children’s physical and mental health permanently. Does the extra money earned really more important than the children’s future? And can you see how vulnerable and helpless the children were? Even though you know it was him who hurt you so much and only treat you as a tool for earning, you still need to work for them for life.

Meanwhile Jamal was the one who escaped from the guardian and work hard by himself for living. This scene has a very clear contrast when the two actors confronted. And I start to agree this sentence, “what you are now may depend on your luck, but depend more on what you have done”. Jamal may be unlucky as he can sing well and being picked up by the guardian. But if he did not struggle to escape and work hard, he may end up worse than the boy that he was facing in that scene.


I also have deep impression of Jamal’s brother, who loved Jamal so much but sometimes commit crimes and hurt Jamal unintentionally even though he knew those were sinful. Indeed, it is difficult to live in the real world with everything satisfying your will. We need to know how to scarify and compromise. But in critical situations, you will know who is good and who is bad, just like Jamal’s brother. After all, the reason behind why people commit crime is just for living, if not to satisfy their illimitable desires.

It is good that more people concern with the slumdogs nowadays after watching this movie. Recent news also reported the post filming life of the little actors and actress. In fact their lives are exactly like themselves in the movie, becoming rich and famous in one night from slumdogs. Many people want to give them a new life, opportunities to go to school, play in Disneyland, travel around etc. So how about the other children who are also living in slum areas in India? How about those in other developing countries? Will they also benefit from the “Slumdog Millionaire effect”?



I just hope people will still remember there are children suffering in the other side of the world everyday after this tidal. You know virtually no one remember what had happened in Sichuan now.

5 comments:

nicole said...

hey calvin, thanks for the sharing! i'm so happy that you start blogging here.

Keep up, movie lovers team!

Anonymous said...

Ok let me write something while I am at work..hehe.

The best way of watching a movie for me is to put myself into the shoes of the main character. This time, I found it difficult to step into Jamal's shoe, but rather much easier in his brothers.

It would be very easy for us, who hasn't suffered poverty or even refered to as a slum"dog", to judge his acts.

But then, he was just a person who wanted to make sure his chances of survival and moving to the "upper class" the greatest.

He betrayed Jamal and his gf multiple times during the movie.

But rmb the time where he was still awake while Jamal invited the girl into the house? I rmb that scene the most coz at first, I didn't know what it meant. But later i realized that it is a scene to show the inner struggle of him between "taking care of his own and Jamal's wellbeing and the inner voice that tells him to help the girl".

When he let go of the hands of the girl in the train. He was under the same struggle again. And this time, he chose to not add any extra burden to his already small chance of survival.

Not only does he have to take care of himself, he also has to take care of his brother. That responsibility alone would make a person thk twice before adding any extra burden. Rmb, that girl is someone they just met.

I really wonder whether I would do that as well....

well , I won't let the girl into the hands of those bad ppl ofcoz, but perhaps I won't choose to take care of any body unless I'm certain I could take care of myself and my younger brother.

It was lovely to see that at last, he chose his brother ahead of himself.

I think his story is more touching than Jamal's..

who would go chase a girl for 10 years -0- it's just a crush.

goooooood girl said...

your blog is feel good......

Calvin said...

Nitesh Sancheti also has written something about this movie in his facebook note, see if you are interested to read as well.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=72180821210

nicole said...

wow kam yiu, thanks for the insightful review~