slumdog millionaire

Not many movies inspire me to write, but I felt totally sucked into the narrative of Slumdog Millionaire and I can't get it out of my head. It might be that I just watched The Namesake again with my family on Christmas, but I feel such a particular kinship with Indian narratives as someone who has lived in China and then emigrated. Truly, when I see the ghettos of Mumbai in Slumdog or the uniquely immigrant struggles of the Gangulis in The Namesake, I feel like someone is knocking on the very door of my consciousness.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Slumdog Millionaire is a story about a young man named Jamal who wins twenty million rupees, or the equivalent of one million US dollars, on India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" show. He is accused of cheating on the show, but the movie unravels how he was able to answer the questions not by book smarts but by experiences he had in the ghettos.
A much better and more coherent teaser for the movie is here.

I loved that the narrative began from the present (as Jamal is being tortured and accused of cheating on the show) and then proceeds in flashbacks. The editing for the movie is incredibly well-done, and Mumbai just JUMPS off the screen with the vividness of all five senses. (One reviewer I read said that he could smell Mumbai from watching, and that's true for better or worse.)
I also especially loved how Jamal and his brother made a living as kids by ripping off American tourists--so, so, SO in tune with the tense relationship between "third world" citizens and the Western tourists who treat entire cultures as quaint vacations. And at first I thought that the emphasis on the love story would turn me off, but it actually made the movie much more charming--I was floored by Jamal's utter devotion for Latika even though time and different life experiences repeatedly tore them from each other's company.
Epic, and v. romantic.

Plus, Slumdog featured a remix of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," so 'nuff said.