by neznakomka

Created on: February 03, 2009

How do people learn? How do children acquire the knowledge and skills to progress in the real world?

In his book "My Universities", the Russian/Soviet author Maxim Gorky doesn't hesitate to equal the value of the real life experience to this of a higher education. In the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", the director Danny Boyle puts the audience face-to-face with a similar lesson.

In the film Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a boy from the slums, is able to earn millions of rupees in the Indian version of the TV show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" - not as a result of a formal schooling, but as a consequence of real-life hardships, pains, losses and tragic encounters. Every question leading to the award reveals its answer in a shocking experience, permanently captured as an ever-bleeding scar in the memory.

On the day before the final stage of the contest, the participant Jamal has been interrogated and tortured because of suspicions for cheating, and this is how the audience comes to know the secret of his success: in front of the recorded show, Jamal has to explain the origin of each answer.

The screenplay of the film "Slumdog Millionaire" is based on the novel "Q and A", written by the Indian author Vikas Swarup. It has the fast pace of a brilliant action movie, blended with a long-lasting and passionate love story, and at the same time it offers a realistic insight into the vivid, but not always cheerful colors of India's new history and present.

There are bloody scenes of religious violence and the sight of children being harassed and horribly maltreated. There is the prosperous new India with an abundance of new buildings and luxury architecture, with the microwaves and American style sandwiches in elegantly designed dwellings inhabited with crime and repulsive sexism. And at the same time the ambitious, knowledge- and success oriented youth in front of the computer terminals, creating a chance for the tea servant Jamal to change his destiny.

To the wonderful cast, besides Dev Patel, belong the beautiful Freida Pinto (Latika), Anil Kapoor (Prem Kumar), Irrfan Khan (Police Inspector), and even though not professional performers, the children presenting the stories of Jamal, his brother Salim and "the third Musketeer" Latika, absolutely win the audience with the purity of their emotions and natural manners.

The film has been nominated for ten Oscars for the year 2009, three of them for music, and is already a winner of 42 awards. In addition to the Oscars, it also has a respectable number of nominations from different festivals.

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