How and why does an average movie win an Oscar.

Slumdog Millionaire. Two terms which have usually never been used together but would now remain together in the psyche of Indians as well as westerners for a very long time to come. A movie by the much acclaimed director/producer Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting and The Beach fame), it depicts the story of an Indian slum dweller and his rags to riches story. The background of the movie is a masala love story, a TV game show –Who wants to be a millionaire and the murky underbelly of a developing India’s underworld and mafia.

Much has been already said and written about this movie and countless times on countless platforms would it have been reviewed. But what appeals to me most as an Indian and as a regular movie-goer is the fact that a movie, which by no means has a better story and prowess of its actors than many of our Indian Film Industry’s contemporary classics, is already on its way to win the Academy Awards.

It might have been an extraordinary achievement for Danny Boyle to come to India and shoot in the slums. ‘Dis-organization’ and ‘chaos’ are the two words which are usually associated with India in the west. And that is exactly what Danny Boyle would have had to deal with, when filming in this part of the world. But if you compare it to Indian directors, Slumdog Millionaire’s direction was no big marvel. Movies like Satya , Company, D and various others since the industry’s early years have been shot at such locales with much ease. With Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan having such short roles one obviously did not expect any wonders from them. And Dev Patel and Freida Pinto are mostly expressionless in the entire movie. Involve the other aspects too and one surely realizes that AR Rehman has given much better tracks in his earlier movies (though never so varied in a single album). But still SM (Slumdog Millionaire) is winning all the laurels. And the question that is on everyone’s mind is ‘How and why did it achieve such success?’

To answer this question let’s consider The Man Booker Prize winning novel ‘The White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga. The protagonist is again an Indian. Living in a developing country he does have to deal with the atrocities of the rich and get involved in crime to become successful. The heart of India-‘rural India’ is poor and most of the people are not able to afford two square meals a day. Two stories with similar backdrops are the most widely acclaimed ‘products’ in their respective fields that we have seen in the past few years. Is it because of crime, passion, love, poverty and all the masala in these stories? Or is it because of the “India” factor in them? Or is it simply because of both being a rags-to-riches story? It is none of them individually but all of them involved together with a word that I used earlier for them-‘product’.

SM is a product for the west. They love poverty. They love the slums and crime. They love ‘the true picture’ and ‘reality’. The picture that they get of India in today’s era is of a country which is stealing their jobs. A country which has achieved a lot in terms of economic growth but which none of the pundits would have predicted 30 years ago to go so far. Being the mystical country that India has always been to them, many are still be puzzled as to how a dying economy of the late 1980s ridden by corruption, poverty, hunger and terrorism is actually so close to becoming one of the world leaders. And along comes a movie which somehow shatters their new forming opinion and takes them all inside the darkest alleys of India. Suddenly the west wakes up to the fact that India is not actually so ‘shining’. They realize that ‘the India’ which they had all thought is no more, does still exist. And this is the sole reason. This is the main reason behind SM doing such wonders at such big stages. Behind all the progress and the happiness does lie the filthy underground that is in stark contrast with it. Paparazzi always feed on such stories and SM becomes popular by this simple fact.

Either it is a mere co-incidence that the story takes shape in India or it was a very well thought out strategy. The backdrop does more wonders for the film than anything else. A Slumdog Millionaire from Afghanistan might not have had that hard-hitting an effect. SM is by no means was intended to be a classic but has been carved out to be one by the media and the circumstances.

P.S.I'd written this article before SM winning the Academy.