Slumdog
Millionaire and the BBFC are taking a bit of stick in the Times in
an article by Alice Miles. She writes:
There are many reasons why you might want to see
Slumdog Millionaire - it is directed by the brilliant Danny Boyle, it
is set in the sensual feast that is Mumbai and it has won awards for
music, directing and acting. And then there is the fact that critics and
its own publicity have branded it a feel-good movie. Call me shallow,
but that ultimately swung it for me.
A few hours later I was wincing in my seat. The film opens with a scene of
horrible violence: a man hanging from the ceiling of a police station,
being tortured to unconsciousness, a trickle of blood running from his
mouth. It moves swiftly into scenes of utter misery and depravity, in
which small starving children are beaten, mutilated and perverted.
Mothers die horribly in front of their sons, small girls are turned into
prostitutes, small boys into beggars. I hope it won't spoil the
feel-good surprise if I tell you that one particularly sadistic scene
shows a young boy having his eyes burnt out with acid to maximise the
profits of street begging. Charities working with street children in
India seem unaware of any instances of this, although Save the Children
emphasises that similar violence against children by beggar mafia is
well documented.
The film is brilliant, horrifying, compelling and awful, the relentless
violence leavened only by an occasional clip of someone working his way
through the questions on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a
Millionaire?. You might want to look away, but you can't and, despite
the banal storyline, I can see why it is pulling in the awards.
Yet the film is vile. Unlike other Boyle films such
as Trainspotting or Shallow Grave, which also revel in a
fantastical comic violence, Slumdog Millionaire is about
children. And it is set not in the West but in the slums of the Third
World. As the film revels in the violence, degradation and horror, it
invites you, the Westerner, to enjoy it, too. Will they find it such fun
in Mumbai?
Here is the BBFC summary of the film.
Slumdog Millionaire is a drama about a young street lad who
wins the Mumbai version of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'. It has
been classified '15' for strong language and violence.
(I would add another ten to that)
The film is in a mixture of English, and subtitled Hindi. Together
with several uses of strong language in English, there are also a
number of untranslated uses of strong Hindi terms - all of which
were considered acceptable under the BBFC Guidelines at '15', which
permit 'frequent use of strong language (eg 'fuck').
Strong violence is seen in a scene where a group of Muslims
are attacked and killed i the street - together with general chaos
and beatings, there are some stronger and more explicit moments,
such as the deliberate setting of a man on fire, that go beyond the
BBFC Guidelines at '12A', which direct 'Violence must not dwell on
detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood'. We also
later see strong violence that includes a knife held to a woman's
throat as she's forcibly snatched off the street, an impressionistic
blinding of a young beggar boy, and torture by electricity in a
police station.
Comedy? So maybe that's it: I just didn't get the
joke.
