By Theophilus Keme
Truly a remarkable movie and I highly recommend you to see this movie if you haven’t.
So it was weekend and I was really interested in seeing a movie to relax myself, as I had no plans of stepping out from the house. Well after settling down with lot of chop-chops as that’s what we now call Netflix and chill these days. Na so I gather bottle of groundnut and queenies crunch from my girl queenth who is into pastries with one big Chivita as I started scrolling through a list of movies I have stored on my hard-drive.
On scrolling I stumbled on this catchy title, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, a 2008 movie. From the title I had already concluded abeg this one must be one of those Godfather and Pablo Escobar type of drama as it is now kukuma an Indian movie.
Already I poked in my mind. isn’t it a known fact that Indian-hem is one profitable business in Indian that make any one from the slums a millionaire over night? (Well, so they had made it seem anyways) and this I felt it will be a total waste to see this type of movie.
Well, that was what I had thought. in second thought, i decided to give it the benefit of doubt to see the movie regardless as i wouldn’t be using the subtitles anyways! (Yeah, I watch indian, korea movies without subtitles). I don’t, because not been able to understand the used language makes me curious enough to make me pay more attention to every details and direction of the story line.
So as I was saying, at the start of the movie, I had already began to love the pictures of it. It was able to portray an unusual light of the environment that one is not used to. (Yeah, slums) Not even the media shows pictures and the personalities of these places enough and the movie did so much justice to showing the extreme unusual lifestyles of the people at the slums.
(I know in Nigeria we have our own slums and trenches but permit me to say that there are perhaps better trenches to others. Because the one of India unveiled in this movie is extreme with a large population of people living in poverty! Goshhhh how do people manage to breathe not to talk more of surviving in such places)
So in review of the movie these are some important lessons I picked.
1 -DETERMINATION
Young Jamal Malik, whose first scene did not only got me wondering of the manner of kid he was, it also got me curious to know how far such a young boy can go in life should he maintain such unbroken determination in getting whatsoever he want. This, in this particular scene, which I may call one of the highlights of the movie is how young Jamal proved he his determined to meeting his movie hero, even though it means dipping into a smelly rotten pool of shit because his beloved big brother Salim had locked him behind a pit-latrin where the only way out was to go under the pit. (Eewwww)
And contrary to his brother wish, thinking he has payed jamal of his own coin for making him lose money by denying another customer from using the pit-latreen he supervises, he thought he has also deprived Jamal the life opportunity from getting an orthograph from his most reverend movie star who was announced to visit the slumps at that point in time, but little did he know, that the stinking boy he later saw who was forcing his way through the mammoth crowd to meet up with the celebrity with a body full of shits was his brother.
Honestly that scene alone made me anticipates total craziness from coming scenes. (Like demnnn- such guts)
2- Also; the movie proved, what it means ‘When there is a Will there will be a way’.
Their previous residence was evaded by thugs assigned by the government in order for that particular environment not to be a settlement for refuges. Jamal and brother had to run and start fending for themselves in their very early age, as both their parents were killed during the thug invasion. But this didn’t deter them, but rather they looked for every means to survive from scavenging dirt on dump-sights to later bin found by a Mafia boss who they thought found interest in them to genuinely help them but little did they know that they wanted to be enslaved into corporate begging. And this they ran out from to rather be independent beggars and do whatsoever their hands finds instead.
Young Jamel unlike his elder brother is quick to discover good and legal opportunities and leach on them. Though he never had a formal education but the zeal to fend for himself and to make himself useful to people made him very teachable. To the extent that he learnt how to read, write and speak english fluently with foreigners and be a tourist guard and be whatsoever anyone needed him to be. All through determination he succeeded in becoming what he deem fit for him.
3- RELATIONSHIP
Obviously there must be a lesson of relationship. You don’t expect an India movie not to have some sort of lessons of romance and relationship. In the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. We can notice that there are two keen relationship. That is, the brotherly relationship Jamal shares with his rigid and hot headed brother Salim and the relationship Jamal shares with his child hood female friend who happens to come out from the same slums as them, Latika.
The relationship between Jamal and Salim his brother, is one they always step on each other’s toes since childhood. Salim had always needed to prove he was in charge of things and needed his younger brother to follow irrespective if it is against his wish. And this disagreement always lead them into fighting and to make one think Salim hated his brother. But Salim on two important occasions proved that regardless of issues, family got each other’s back no matter what.
One; was when they were tender and the mafia-boss had requested Salim to gaslight his younger brother into falling asleep so they could plug out his eyes to become a blind beggar. But Salim insisted with the plan but rather, rebel against his mafia boss by pouring the acid on the face of his guard to save his kid brother to escape.
The second occasion that Salim once played an hero to his kid brother, was how he let go of Latika to go meet up with jamal. Salim realized that his kid brother will never give up on anything he does, until he succeeds at it.
Jamal had found out that his child hood crush, Latika was now the wife of the second Mafia boss his brother Salim was working for. This, has Jamal tried to get back Latika away from the mafia boss, but his brother had stopped him. Despite the few attempts he (salim) tried keeping her away from his brother, Jamal still persist to showing up to her, to the extent that he had gone to the live tv of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ just so Latika could see him, because she alleged it was her favorite tv.
Salim, realizing he has always been the stubborn one realized he needed to make his kid brother happy eventually even if it means that he would lose his life. This he decide to set Latika free from his mafia boss.
And when the mafia boss discovered this, he knew it was by the doing of Salim and this they led an attack on Salim which cost Salim his life. But Salim shot the mafia boss killing him first before his guards shot him on the Bathub of money he had surrounded himself with- to signify that although he was born poor- but he is dying rich on a bathup of money. (Poetic justice I will say)
4- Experience Is A Better Teacher
The life of Jamal from the wretched environment he found himself to fending for him and his brother and also his lover in a tender age is an evidence that there is no better teacher than experience. They never had a permanent roof over their head, as they had find shelter wherever the nights is fortunate to meet them.
They never knew where their next course of meal will be comping from, as they live only for the moments. And these has gathered up into a catalog of life lessons that they (Jamal) has become more than an average man who had only settled for a particular lessons in the four walls of school and has become more than the average craftsman who specializes on what sort of enterprises.
Jamal daily experience made him incidentally and incredibly qualified for whatever questions that the anchor of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire was asking. Even Jamal was amazed of how much he knew, as he felt the questions that were rather asked on the live show was somewhat below what he had expected. He saw them to be too common whereas they weren’t common as he think it would for everyone else, but due to his daily experience these questions looked trivial.
5- Trust your guts and move with it
One of the most easiest thing that was expected by the Host of the show of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’’ was that Jamal would compromise, considering he was an illiterate with no academic background and no proper documented work experience and most especially that he had come from the slums. But these to his amazement, in spite of the pressure and the various mind tactics he had used against Jamal to picking a wrong answer. Jamal never bent nor compromise to his terms. Rather he fought back stronger and followed his guts regardless of whatever any one said of him.
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Jamal being on the hot seat of who wants to be a millionaire was the greatest highlight of the movie. Well I guess that’s why the movie was titled as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
He’s quest to answering all the questions to win the twenty millionaire rubies suddenly became a feat that is barely heard of in that show. He suddenly became an image who was not only representing himself but a representative of the clan of unfortunate people who had had their upbringing from the slumps. He became a media sensation as he was just 18 years old and this made virtually everyone in India keenly interested him. Though he had joined the quest for the purpose of just being on TV for his childhood crush Latika to see him on Tv, but little did he know that it was the world that saw him and celebrated him.
The movie ended with a perfect blend of hope, love, resilience and success.
Truly a remarkable movie and highly recommend you to see this movie if you haven’t.
FACT & OVERVIEW
Slumdog Millonaire was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2009 and won 8—the most for any 2008 film—including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won seven BAFTA Awards including Best Film, five Critics’ Choice Awards and four Golden Globes. Slumdog Millionaire is based on a true story, it is loosely based on the novel “Q & A” by Vikas Swarup.
