slumdog to millionaire : a transition generation

as i was watching this movie; i did not want it to be as good as i heard it would be. i wanted to be able to say that roja, bombay and nayagan were better just because i wanted to say that i had seen indian movies that were better than the broader population.

but this was good. this was very good. this was very very good. this was "tearing totally at the end" good. this was o so wholesomelly good.

i hope countless indian kids go to this movie on their first date. i hope countless kids go to this movie on their first date.

they should have picked indian indian kids as the actors. i am a stickler for accents in a movie and some of the indian accents in the movie were rubbish. but that kid in the main role - top job buddy - i think Dev is his name.

this is a must watch across every generation. the best thing about the movie was the way the story was told to us. you have to give the director credit for this. it is so easy to mess up a movie when it shows the characters age and when there is so much ground to cover. god i wish i had read the book. it must have been tingling.

do you remember what it feels like to yearn for someone. to yearn so much that your heart just fills up. fills up so much that it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger but it never bursts. it is a nice feeling. one that is good to experience. it brings a genuine smile.

i am envious of the generation below me. the indian generation below me. as a friend pointed we are the transition generation. the one below is brash, confident, willing to re-write the rules. they live in a world where global communication and exchange existed from childhood. it was never cool to be indian. it was never cool to be a cool indian. well in my world anyway. there was code, rules, mannerisms, etiquette, cultural norms. they had to be abided by or you were a bit lesser. or rather if you followed them you were a bit greater. it is so funny when i look back at it all. as that first really big generation of indians left the country - it was this absolutely comical competition to see which group/family lived like them and their parents did in india. we are the transition generation. pisses me right off. lol.

i remember thinking about the new indian youth sometime back. i remember reading about this youth in the leading newspapers of the world. when it hit me most though was around 2 years ago whilst i was in chennai and i got a chance to walk through the city. i had not been to chennai for around three years and to this day i remember "feeling" the difference. the vigour, the excitement, that palpable "anything could be achieved here"/"this is where dreams come alive" feeling like in new york except this was young and raw for i knew so.

my india - to this day is fundamentally kerala and really calicut. and i played that charachter well; really well. hey i got my senior crew big points for playing that role really well in my younger days. and that is a part of india. but there is so much more to the indian. i will one day - not too far away; whistle my own tune through india. i yearn to hear the different echos in the different corners of the country.

courage, honesty and sleflessness - you can't really ask more from a person than that. there is a good argument to be made that modern india was forged under the inspiration of those traits. we forget that sometimes. i never used to. i never used to. i have recently.

anyway - it's been a long time i have been inspired enough to write without wanting to stop. but i shall shortly. let's recap.

:) i am angry that i am part of the indian "transition generation" (i wonder if my generation in india feels the same). look if there are any kids below 22-24 reading this who might get snapped up in the former. live your life. there is no set path you have to follow. follow your dreams. sit down work out what you want to do. you are lucky for if you are indian you have a fantastic ancestry - something which can be a pool of inspiration like few social pools can be. do not succumb to the pressures of familial conformity. values are important and will help you to serve, understand yourself and the relationship with society and might even provide clarity on your existence. i have seen however cultural norms used as a stick too many times however just to satisfy fear. do not succumb to this. you can do whatever you want. and by doing so - you do justice to your ancestory.

and finally - well - it's nice to be inspired. really nice. i leave you with this thought. we really have to story in life. write,create, live stories through our life. really that is all we have. good, bad, funny, scary - they are all but stories. nothing really matters. but the more stories we have, the more we may have a chance to understand truths, the more we might have to pass on to the next generation.

this was a fantastic movie. inspiring. a real journey-taker. a good story.

9.25/10

m

Australia - Crikey, it's a bloody good movie!

Emotive. Like the Titanic, like Jerry Mcguire (prob more of the latter). A sweeping epic, though you felt like you could have been swept away a bit more. It needed a bit more of a James Cameron touch. This is my first movie review - on paper (or on screen; is that right?) - so I want to get this out there.

I tear in movies.

I tear for Hope,
I tear for Inspiration,
I tear for Courage.

So yeah - I teared during Australia.

Perfomances are solid. I thought Kidman was exaggerating slightly initially but that played through after a while. Hugh Jackman is really getting down the tough sensitive guy thing down pat. I don't know if he could play Joker or do a Brokeback Mountain but he's alright.

I liked Moulin Rouge and you can see the Baz connection in both movies. You respect what the Director was aiming to do with the movie. You also get the feeling that perhaps this was just a bit too "sweeping" for Baz. Good attempt though mate. He really is a dreamer, a sort of fairy tale teller and you gotta respect that. One hopes that he stays true to that. I cannot think of many other directors that make a movie like a song. Australia is like a delightful Barry Manilow.

The movie also touched on very heavily one of my fave topics. Identity. Every Australian should watch this. It is a shame my seniors did not tell me the stories, did not pass on the real stories of the challenges they faced and the difficulties they went through and their seniors went through to allow me to live the life that I live. Being an Australian is becoming cooler by the day. We still have the Blacks though. :)

So ... all in all, a good movie, good acting, directing was perhaps a tad off as the flow could have been better and the movie could have come at me harder. Really nice characters, decent script - cinematography could have been better, lovely story (the quasi main focus on the Aboriginal Young'one got the heart strings). Definitely watchable and the tie in with World History is a strong feature.

It could have been an 8 but I am giving it a 6.75/10.

I'll leave you with a quote from the movie that I really, really liked:

"You lose everything, everything in life - all you have are stories" or something like that.

Good on ya mate.