Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is an Oscar-winning film directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandlen. The story is about an Indian boy named Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) who grows up in the slums of Mumbai with his brother, Salim (Maddhur Mittal). The two brothers are quickly orphaned when a group of religious rioters kill their mother right in front of them. The boys then meet Latika, another orphan, and go through a series of tragic events. Along the way, Salim becomes a gangster for the notorious Maman and Latika is separated from them. Determined to find Latika, his one true love, Jamal goes on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in hopes that she will be watching. Jamal sweeps the show and everyone thinks he is cheating. They torture him to ask how he knew all the answers, and he begins to tell the story of his life and how the answers to the questions just fell into his lap. Apparently, it is destiny.

Although I loved the character Latika, I thought that the filmmakers should have depicted a stronger woman in the film as well. There were so many male characters and hardly any female characters at all. Even though men weren’t portrayed in the best light during the film, there was the main hero, who was strong, righteous, and likeable. Latika was also likeable, but she wasn’t self-sufficient and relied on action from the male characters to propel her to action.

I don’t understand how this was the “feel-good” movie of the year. Yes, it had a happy ending (because, let’s face it, no one was that sad when Salim died) but the rest of the movie was pretty depressing. Religious related murders, purposely maiming a child, child prostitution, rape, domestic violence, gangs, torture, and poverty? Then Slumdog is the feel good movie of the year.
I have already seen Slumdog several times, and I like it. It’s rare that a Best Picture winner has a happy ending. The hero is a really good guy and true love wins out in the end. I would recommend this movie to anyone over the age of 15.

No Man's Land

No Man’s Land is a 2001 film directed by Tanis Danovic. The movie plot centers around the trench between the warring Bosnian Muslim and Serb sides called “no man’s land”. A group of Bosnian Muslims are opened fire upon and the (supposedly) last remaining one, Ciki (Branko Djuric), is left in no man’s land. Two Bosnian Serbs, an old man and a rookie named Nino (Rene Bitorajac), are sent in to make sure that there were no survivors. The two Serbs set a mine under a Bosnian Muslim’s body and are ambushed by Ciki. Nino survives the rapid gunfire and Ciki can’t bring himself to finish him off. Then, to add to the tension, the booby-trapped body named Cera (Filip Sovagovic) wakes up and can’t move or he will blow everything to smithereens. The rest of the movie is a half-hearted rescue mission for both sides, with crazed reporters demanding actions from the military.

The movie opens with Ciki and his groups lost in the fog, a metaphor for the chaos and uncertainties going on in former Yugoslavia. “No Man’s Land” plays with expectations about what happens in war movies where men from opposing sides meet. Generally in a movie, the two men bond, become friends, and realize that the war is stupid. In this movie, the men bond, but not in the way we expect them to. They realize that they have things in common. Ciki and Nino knew the exact same girl and they speak the same language, but they hate each other. They speak of the atrocities committed against their own side as if the other man has personally done it himself. The years of hatred between the two groups can’t be erased by a short time in a trench.

As the gun rotates between the two men, the gun-wielder makes the other man say that the war was his side’s fault. But saying it doesn’t mean that the man being forced to say it has changed inside. Both still believe that they are not at fault for what is going on. When the man with the gun demands something of the other and is asked why he should do that, the answer is “Because I have a gun and you don’t!”

The film is an anti-war film. It stresses how petty and silly the hatred between the two men is. This movie probably had an impact on Americans because it was easier for people from the United States to see the futility of war in this movie, because we don’t understand Balkan politics and haven’t experienced the hatred between the Croats and the Serbs. When I see a movie about racial prejudice during the Civil War, I realize why there is such tension between the blacks and the whites. But I haven’t lived where Ciki and Nino lived, and I don’t understand how they can hate each other when they have quite a bit in common and seem like semi-decent fellows.

The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski was written by the Coen brothers and directed by Joel Coen. The Big Lebowski follows the life of Jeffery “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), an LA slacker who enjoys bowling with his friends Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi) and smoking marijuana. A couple of thugs assault him in his home one night, thinking that he is a different, richer Jeffrey Lebowski. Once they realize their mistake, the thugs pee on The Dude’s rug and leave. The Dude tries to get a new rug, and a complicated, unusual series of events follows. The movie picks on many movie clichés and stereotypes, which makes it an avant-garde film. For example, the movie centers around a pretty normal guy living an uneventful life, as do a lot of other movies. In the other movies, the hero is thrust into action by the plot. The Dude is also thrust into action, but in The Big Lebowski, it just seems ridiculous.
The movie starts off with a western sounding song in the background with a “cowboy” narrator talking about The Dude and making him sound like a big hero who does amazing things. Even though the movie is setting the audience up to think that this is a Western movie, the narrator suddenly declares that The Dude lives in Los Angeles. A “normal” movie would be showing so-called “important” things happening to the main character, but when we first see The Dude, he is picking out half-and-half at a grocery store. That scene doesn’t really even have a point. The half-and-half isn’t a major factor in the story. The narrator keeps talking about The Dude, saying random things that don’t really have any merit before finally admitting that he lost his train of thought. The audience then doesn’t hear from the narrator until about halfway through the movie, when the narrator shows up in person at The Dude’s bowling alley and strikes up conversation with him. This defies all typical storylines for movies that use narrators; the main character never meets the person narrating their life. The Dude not only meets the narrator, but the narrator asks Dude if all his swearing is really necessary and tells him he digs his style. The two meet again near the end of the film and talk for a while before The Dude goes back to bowling. After The Dude leaves, the narrator turns to the camera and addresses the audience yet again.