Film, Literature, & the Human Condition

Slumdog Millionaire is a miracle. It unfolds before your eyes with breathtaking sweep and bravura filmmaking that engulfs you in sadness, human indecency, violence, beauty, spiritual epiphany, redemption, passion, sensitivity, human decency, and ultimately, emotional upliftment in the space of two hours. If you have no context of the film at the start, your sensibilities will be overrun with intense ardor by the end. I had never even heard of the novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup when I first learned of Slumdog Millionaire, and the premise about a street urchin who gets a spot on the Indian Who Wants to be a Millionaire immediately disinterested me, but that description is an utmost simplification. The game show is a plot device, a surprisingly brilliant one at that, but the heart of the movie is our hero named Jamal and the human connections he embraces, sometimes desperately, to find meaning in his life. It can be gut wrenching at times, and despite the ending, you will remain disturbed by the tumultuousness that drowns Jamal throughout his unsympathetic existence, especially when you consider his experiences are a reality to so many people in the world without the catharsis of love for another human being. It consumes him and fuels his unyielding spirit until fate itself recognizes how wrong it is to pile so much sorrow onto a person with the capacity for such pure, truthful devotedness to his own feelings, yet alone the girl of his dreams. (continue reading…)