The Film Comment of Slumdog MillionaireThe film opens as Jamal Malik, a former street child from the slums, was tortured by two Mumbai policemen. The film is organized into two mixed plots. And then we get this is a story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who was about to experience the special day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he just answered the question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for a night, police arrested him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? The police asked Jamal how he came to know the answer to a question, and Jamal replied by recounting an incident in his life, told in flashbacks. Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal telled the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story revealed the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Intrigued by Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returned to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about that if he could be the Millionaire.GenreDepend on the basis of subject matter, formal properties, style or affective response. We can define Slumdog Millionaire as a Social Drama, Romance, and Comedy. We know that drama is a category comprising serious films that portray character in conflict with themselves, others, or foces o f nature. Social drama, whose narrative concern or conflict is a social problem -poverty, inequality, discrimination, racism, or exclusion. Slumdog Millionaire can be classified as a social drama, with the social problem at its heart being so called abduction of children, classism, religious conflict, and the rich and the polarization. In Jamal's life, he faced his mother killed by heretic; he and his brother abducted by the bad man; and he was laughed because he was tea worker. From another point of view, like many of the great love stories, the Slumdog Millionaire is Romance film, which means that its narrative centers on the romantic involvement of the maincharacters, the development of their relationship, and the obstacles they faced. Like all the romance film, the Slumdog Millionaire bases on they met each other in childhood, they faced involuntary separation, financial difficulty. The love can be power to stand in the stage of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" for Latika But they defeated the circumstance beyond their control, and then would live happily forever. The essence of the way they followed is the "force opposed to love" that by presenting obstacle to the lovers turns the love affair into a story. Thirdly, it also own some comedy elements in it. From the farce of the two brothers, such as, when Jamal answered the call of nature, Salim closed the door. For another plot, the people danced at the train station. Also, it ended with a happy ending.Character and PerformanceEvery character has their feature .I will introduce the two brothers. Jamal, the minor character, he is a kind man. In order to get an idol signature can jump into cesspit. He wouldn't discard partner. After escaped, he still went back and looked for the friends who trapped in the gang. He loved Latika no matter how time and the environment changes, he still loved her as Forrest Gump. He didn't have any brave feat, outrageous behavior, he just insisted, no abundance, didn't give up. He relied on his own efforts to meet his friends and loved ones. But the secondary character, Salim adapted to life without moral restraint, without real romantic temperament, he had the courage to killed the gang boss. He could be loyal to his younger brother in a last-minute, also could betray his brother publicly. For the money and power he can live with gang boss, he also can apprehend the truth suddenly. Perish together with bad people together, with the pursuit of money of mutually assured destruction. In that the social environment, Salim is a very typical character, the choice of the natural balance produces the man like him. I shall not be denied his survival ability is very strong. Someone said Salim too cunning, and Jamal was too naive. I feel a bit accurately described as "opportunist" and "idealist".In the movie, all the actors gave us a real performance. The act has "got inside" the character's psyche marks the performance as more authentic than other style, creating a pure presence of character unadulterated by any sense of the performer's identity. We can get easily thatthe director supply the method acting for emotional truth in the unconscious of the actor rather than in the dramatic text also lent weight to the movie emphasis on personality. I really appreciate the shape of opposition character.NarrativeFrom the beginning, the movie used the double film narrative style to the point. The whole film moved round Jamal memories. From Jamal's memories, the religious conflict, the feelings of morality, affection and love come in the form of reality, it seems that this happened near us, which we can touch. The movie using the technique of narration interspersed with flashbacks, spreading the Jamal's life experiences slowly. Such as the plot about the mother's death, and the experience of his brother. The film narrates as a story in fluent narrative. It possesses American style, with the romantic, light and fairy tale. It also has the European film humanistic feelings. I have been attracted deeply because the narrative techniques and the suspense rebirth plot.StyleSlumdog Millionaire supply low -Angle shot, high-Angle shoe and Montage technique and so on. The Montage technique's using express the feature of characters, the social reality and the emotion in a complete way. Some of plots took close-up shot to express the mood of the characters. At the beginning of the movie, shoot the police officers and Jamal in close-up shoot, through the close-up shoot of two people's faces is shrouded in smoky, showed the slums discrimination against people and equal status. Through the process of thinking and memory described, the close-up shoot let the emotion of Jamal played quite in place. The film using the vision, prone clap, lift lens photography vast slums of the overall environment, express the slums' chaos, garbage in everywhere, and messy environments. Anther we can see might be the music. In different plot supply the different musical style, some were happy, some were sad, some in quick rhythm. We also can get that the lyric express the situation in that time.Critical perspective sFor my part, about critical perspectives, I want to show my understanding from three points.Firstly, the movie exposed India, even most of the countries in history and the present situation: the rich and the polarization, money and power trading, religious conflict, class discrimination, the national machine ferocity and darkness. But for personally, the film's most memorable part might be Jamal live with Salim childhood in slums and they became orphan and lived around garbages. The most part of the film reflect the true society. But the love story becomes the light point among the evil things. And Jamal's persistence achieves the fairy love story. Beauty and ugliness in sharp contrast, suffering and laugh exists at the same time, the social culture make people frown confused, sad, and infatuate. I have no doubt that Slumdog Millionaire will encourage many more honest films to be produced in India.Secondly, I really appreciate older brother, Salim, grew up in unimaginable poverty, and their mother's tragic death during a Muslim uprising forces them to abandon school and live on the street, foraging for food and cash, and outwitting the adults who try to exploit them. Money and the desire to be a big shot motivate the tough, cynical Salim, and his hard-knocks existence leads him down a dangerous path. Maybe people would say that Salim's whole life was based on money, as we first see when Salim took and sold his brother's autographed picture for money. Money af first was to survive, but as Salim grew older Money became more powerful and was the source of greed. SO I interpreted the money in the bathtub as a symbol saying it ultimately was Money that killed him. But I don't agree with it, he lived in the slums, and he experienced the hard time in his young time, the money for a poor man is important. So the social situation leads him in this way. Maybe some of us would say, why not Jamal do it? But Salim as an elder brother, he must protect his younger brother, so he must be stronger that his young brother. I'm touched by the great brotherhood. Precisely, it’s his brother's love. Salim saved younger brother several times. In order to satisfy his younger brother to looking for the small Latika, he gave up the comfortable life in Taj Mahal. In his heart, the younger brother is the most important, even his life. For younger brother, he killed two gang boss. When they jump on the train for escaping,just put a little effort into it,he can save the little Latika, but he hesitated, finally loose his hand. Because Latika was white elephant, she will drag his brother. His younger brother is his everything for him.A key message brought in towards the end of the film is that Money is less important than love, we see this when Salim sets Latika free and sacrifices himself for the preservation of others, it canalso be seen when Jamal speaks to Latika over the phone and realising that she is safe no longer cares about the million dollar question at hand.The story line of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is centred on the theme of Justice; the Christian view of justice is the ‘Justice of God’meaning the prevalence of sin. Justice in the film is seen from a variety of perspectives including that of sinful nature.。
