Monday, February 23, 2009

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE


Um bom vencedor.
Transcrevo a opinião de um amigo Indo-norte-americano
Last week I saw Slumdog Millionaire. The reviews (at least the ones I read -- New Yorker and Post) in America seemed to harp on the implausibility of the plot -- before saying that it was a good watch. I think my reaction was much stronger than that. I thought it was a great movie! The plot of course was implausible -- but it was only a vehicle for conveying a very serious indictment of Indian "values". First of all, making a movie without the fantastic element and showing only the reality that the movie really portrays would be depressing as hell. So I like the fantastic plot vehicle. But beyond that I think it nails a few things that most "elite" Indians would rather not think about as they discuss their globalization fed holidays in Greece and guzzle wine that they don't understand ($100 for a bottle of Jacob's Creek Shiraz -- really!).I wont give those issues away because I think everyone should see the movie. Suffice to say that the movie portrays an India whose culture has no mooring in any moral value system. That horrible things happen to Indian children not just in full view of India's elites but with their active connivance is a sign of the lack of any moral anchor. That this connivance is seen almost as a right of the Indian ruling classes is a sign of this lack of moral anchor -- see how the ruling classes dehumanize their servants (often children but even when they are not -- all this crap about how servants are part of the family only adds to the tissue of immorality that governs master servant relationships!) and even children in their own families. A class of people who pretend to raise children without any sense of responsibility other than their own personal success and conspicuous consumption cannot be expected to have a sense of responsibility for the children of others who must scrabble through shit to even survive. Incidentally my point is not that bad things are happening in India -- that happens everywhere. My point is that India lacks a framework, a moral underpinning, that could be used to even begin to stop these bad things from happening.So I loved the underlying message of hope in the movie -- particularly how the hope of a billion poor people finds voice in the success of one "slumdog". I regret though that the lack of any moral framework in Indian society will in reality turn the brave shout of hope of India's masses into a long scream into the wilderness
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Não consigo entender como é que "Benjamin Button" alcançou tantas nomeações. Percebo que tenha sido o grande derrotado relativamente às expectativas (para mim incompreensíveis) de muitos.

2 comments:

A Chata said...

Será?

Li o livro e, apesar de, no final o rapaz ficar rico e coma mocinha,
pareceu-me que o que o autor pretendeu foi relatar o drama daquelas crianças.
Vendidas para mendigar, mutiladas para obter mais esmola, famintas e a viver em condições sub-humanas.
O concurso é apenas o 'esqueleto' usado para suportar a narrativa de uma história de vida.

Vou esperar para ver o filme.

Rui Fonseca said...

Será?

Penso que sim.
Porque subscrevo a opinião de um amigo indo-norte-americano, transcrevi o comentário que colocou no seu blog.