Abhijit Speaks :

A few days back I made an RPOD (for the uninitiated ones RPOD stands for Random Prediction Of the Day) that “Taare Zameen Par” (TZP) will win the Oscar for the best foreign film. I was wrong on that prediction. The basic theme behind that prediction was TZP will serve as a good India Proxy at the Oscars, now why that should be so – Lets look at some historical facts, I’d rather pose those as questions ” Why Did Arnold Shwarzeneger become one of the most successful filmstar (actor would be an overstatement)?” or Another one why did Bruce Lee movies started coming during nineteen eightees. I hope you get the drift. Ultimately, the India proxy part was provided by slumdog millionaire (SMDMillionaire). When I figured out that Chris Nolan had not won a single Oscar and “The Departed” won the best film award – I realized, filmfare awards are far more authentic than Oscars.

I should have figured out before making the prediction that – depicting India through a sensitive, empathetic teacher, helping a dysphlexic child realize his world would be largely un-American. Instead, it’d be more American, if you depict, India through slums, beggers and now call center guys. Then of course if you are showing India, how can you not show the Taj? Uh oh and without communal violence (Ram and Allah) shown India is incomplete for a foreigner. Plain simple isn’t it? So SMDMillionaire lives true to its promise of showing to American audience what India is through the eyes of an American.. So far so good. Of course, I do not intend to say that this does not exist in India, infact in India there are far more terrible things than depicted in the movie – the point is “intention” or “point of view”.

Now coming to the movie per say – the movie is fairly okay – The screenplay is quite terrific, I must admit except for a few goof ups -

- A blind beggar knowing Benjamin Franklin on a 100 dollar bill, but an ordinary Indian not knowing who Gandhi is (or perhaps thats intentional?)

- I bet ninety five percent of the gangsters in India would not know what a “coltpoint 45″ is.

However the climax is superbly build (kicking myself for not able to predicting the climax). Rehman music is downright pathetic – I think Rehman is making lower lows in successive movies (ghajini was horrible, this is worse). It’d only be fitting if this receives an Oscar.

Spoiler :

I’d rather have liked the ending as follows – At the last question our boy can’t answer the question – who is the third muscketeer (‘cos he never knew the answer) and looses all the money he’s made but ends up finding his love – After all isn’t it for the Love that he was doing all this?

I’d conclude with another not so RPOD – SMDMillionaire will win the Best Picture award this year.

“May be it is written”