EurasianStudies_0110..

January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1.
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EKUKLU, Bülent
Slumdog Millionaire (eng)
"I thought we could meet only in death."
(The phrase that Latika says to Jamal at the final stage)
Danny Boyle who attracted attention of the cinema audiences with his different cinematographic
language and expression with Trainspotting in 1996, and then won the hearts with his The Beach and 28
Days Later works, commercially successful signings of him, made Sunshine before Slumdog Millionaire, his
latest film.
The movie “Slumdog Millionaire” which is inspired by a true story, stages a lot of Indian actors, mainly
Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor in leading roles, tells the story of a poor young Indian, named Jamal who
enters a contest, India's "Who wants to be a millionaire?" and rises up to the last question.
The main character of the movie, Jamal Malik, is a lad who works in a big call center as tea maker
(kind of waiter) after his childhood days in suburban Mumbai. And he enters a contest, the "Who wants to
be a millionaire?" which has a large audience in India.
When he answers all questions correctly, it raises the suspicion of the person who manages the
contest and when it comes to the final question, Jamal is arrested on suspicion of cheating. During the
investigation, even a secret chip on the body is searched and after all, it is understood that the correct
answers he gives to the questions are related to turning points in his life. Jamal begins to tell the police
the life story of continuous cross-cutting challenges and his brother Salim and Latika, his beloved from
childhood. As the story goes on, it is realized that every single detail in Jamal's story is a way which
provides answers to questions in the contest. On the road to the final, the audience becomes a partner in
Jamal's story.
The movie starts with a scene when Jamal and his friends are chased by the police, and then the story
of his whole life is given by a complex narration which has no certain flow and is without beginning and
end. Jamal's life is a kind of poverty history and he tries to rescue his life and his beloved by winning the
biggest money prize in the major contest of the country. The movie tells Jamal’s effort to answer the
questions in hidden details, step by step through the film. It explains/deals with the issues such as
destiny, love, money, brotherhood by referring to clichés from time to time. A sad moment in Jamal's life
is given in every question. Hence, the answers to questions are in fact no simple bits of information
provided by Jamal, they are rather important events in his life, hidden in his memory. In fact, the answer
to the question asked at the beginning of the movie, is "D-written". The film adopts a fatalistic approach
and this is understood by the sequence of questions in contest: The sequence of answers related to the
bad memories increases the belief that this is Jamal’s fate.
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