Who's rooting for "Slumdog" - Democratic Underground

Iwillnevergiveup

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Sun Feb-22-09 09:52 AM
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Who's rooting for "Slumdog"

I know I am!

The Dickensian genius of 'Slumdog'
By Ed Siegel
February 22, 2009
IF LIFE imitates art tonight, then "Slumdog Millionaire" - the story of a poor Mumbai boy who prevails against all odds - will add the Oscar to its list of accomplishments. Coincidentally, the slumdog who made it all possible for Jamal Malik to strike it rich will be competing with him for eyeballs.

Part 2 of a fascinating new adaptation of "Oliver Twist" will be winding up on "Masterpiece Classic" on Channel 2, as part of that series' Charles Dickens festival. (A repeat of Daniel Radcliffe in "David Copperfield" is next, followed by new versions of "Little Dorrit" and "The Old Curiosity Shop.")

The current "Oliver Twist" isn't a modernized version of the story, but it does have striking modernist touches, as the plot somewhat departs from Dickens. The soundtrack during the London chase scenes even sounds a bit like A.R. Rahman's score for the Mumbai movie.

The comparison with Dickens isn't made lightly. When people want to compare "Slumdog" unfavorably with other movies - as I did in a recent column with Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky" - they point to its Hollywood aspects. But when critics sing its praises, they cite its Dickensian scope.

Since the Academy wasn't smart enough to nominate "Happy-Go-Lucky" or its star, Sally Hawkins, I'm now rooting for the Dickensian "Slumdog." And it really is closer to Dickens than to Hollywood - it doesn't stint from showing the hellish aspects of the Mumbai slums, complete with their own versions of Fagin, Bill Sikes, and the Artful Dodger. The movie's limning of a have-and-have-not society makes 21st-century India seem like 19th-century England as the upper-class Indians barricade themselves from the lower.

Consider Rose's tirade in "Oliver Twist" tonight - "He had been thrashed, sir, thrashed and beaten till his back was scarred. A child. This, and worse, happens to children every single day. And we sit here eating soup."

But what really unites "Slumdog" and "Oliver Twist" is what we come away with. Jamal's victory over evil, like Oliver's, gives us a chance to breathe a sigh of relief at story's end. But it's only a breath. We know that, in the larger sense, the story isn't over.

The conditions are still abysmal, the disparity between rich and poor remains, people will continue to be tortured. Yet, amid all this, Dickens and "Slumdog" director Danny Boyle give us hope that personal and political change are possible. You might even call it the audacity of hope.

Barack Obama's "Who Wants to Be a US President" story also has its Dickensian elements. Even if he never experienced crushing poverty, the rise of a black man to the presidency borders on the astounding. And though the inauguration would have made a tidy ending, life goes on - the economic crisis worsens, Cabinet nominations flame out.

But perhaps Obama, Jamal Malik, and the new "Oliver Twist" all signal a shift. A year ago at this time, the favorite movies for the best picture Oscar - "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" - cast a totally hopeless eye on human events.

That's not the story we want to hear today. Dickens, himself, had to escape his own youthful experiences with the grimmer aspects of life in London. The success of "The Pickwick Papers" in 1836 meant that he'd never have to look back on those days.

But he did. "Oliver Twist" was his next novel, and it exhibits the two great characteristics of all his books - a passion for life, particularly people, and a determination not to forget the situation he escaped from. It's what biographer Edgar Johnson calls "the interwoven comedy and tragedy of the human struggle."

And that's what makes "Slumdog Millionaire" resonate - the realism along with the hopefulness.

I don't know that I'll be watching the Oscars tonight - I haven't been able to take them seriously since "Forrest Gump" won in 1994. (Now that's a movie that perverts the Dickensian ethos into Hollywood phoniness.) But I'll be rooting for Jamal Malik to win again. It's a time for his kind of audacity, his kind of hope.