For those of you enamoured with Danny Boyle’s sweeping examination of life in the slums of Mumbai, but wondering with such a unique movie, where am I going to find something like it I have a little bit of helpful advice for you. It wasn’t until I dropped some suggestions casually on the radio that I realised other folks could really make use of this information.
Suggestion número uno is Salaam Bombay!I offer it up as it is a story about a group of children living on the streets of pre-postcolonial namechange Mumbai. Feature films depicting the kind of abject poverty you’ll find in the slums of India are few and far between guided by a number of factors I won’t bore anyone with here, which makes Salaam Bombay a special film offering a window into that world.
While my second suggestion might not take place in India, it tends to still have more in common with Slumdog Millionaire for a number of reasons. For those of you who haven’t seen City of God yet, you’re in for a real treat.
City of God, much like Slumdog, tells it’s story through a series of richly told retrospectives ok life in the slums of Rio. What’s even more special is that City of Godis based on a true story and still manages to craft a happy ending (maybe not “Slumdog happy”, but happy). City of Godfollows the life of Rocket as he grows up from wee lad to almost a man living in the middle of one of Rio’s most notorious gang wars. The story is rife with fascinating characters and plenty of convergent plot moments to tie it all together. It’s in portuguese with subtitles, and I assure you that listening to the language immerses you deeper into the story.
Anyone got any other suggestions? Bring ‘em on!
