The Newsmaker of the Week this week was Slumdog Millionaire which made all the news by sweeping the Golden Globes. It is a film about Mumbai’s underbelly and music composer A R Rahman won the Golden Globe for the Best Original Score – the first Indian to have achieved that.
Q: Irrfan, the big question of course – what was it like working with an international crew of such quality? What was the Slumdog Millionaire experience all about for you?
A: I was drawn to this film because of Danny Boyle. I came to know that Danny Boyle wants to cast me. I have seen his work, I am familiar with it and fascinated by it. I just wanted to be part of the film. When I read the script, I wasn’t kicked about the role but I couldn’t leave the temptation to work with Danny Boyle and it was a fascinating experience for me – both in the way the movie was shot and in the way Danny told the story. His persepctive of the story is fascinating. I was fortunate to be part of this film.
Also, technically, the way he has handled the film – the structure, story and idea of the film were great. I loved being in this film.
Q: Tell us about the success of this film. Should it be seen as an Indian triumph or an international – maybe even British – triumph?
A: I don’t think the film has anything to do with nationality. It is a triumph of the human spirit. That’s what the theme, story and idea are all – the triumph of the human spirit.
Q: Irrfan you are calling it a triumph of the human spirit, but the fact is that Amitabh Bachchan and other critics are saying that the film glamourises poverty, that it is back to the way old Indian films were made – depicting poverty in a sense for the Western audience.
A: I haven’t read Mr Bachchan’s blog, so if I react to that I will just be speculating. I don’t want to react till I read the quote. As far as critics who are talking about poverty go, yes we are poor and we have a large, large chunk in our country which is poor and I think it will be a very regressive approach if we even don’t even notice it. We should talk about it, we should face it and take it bang on. We should deal with it. It’s like if someone tells me there is an ulcer in your face, my reaction would be to deal with it. If I say I will hide one side and talk about how beautiful the other side of my face it, that makes no sense.
So, the sign of being progressive will be if someone puts a finger on one problem, then we should deal with that problem or create a situation where this problem is not there, so that no one can talk about this problem anymore.
Q: That’s an interesting perspective. The film has swept the Golden Globes and next in line are BAFTAs and Oscars, but what about actually reaching out to the Indian audience as well? Do you think this film will connect with the Indian audience, many of whom have perhaps seen similar films on a virtually day-to-day basis from Bollywood when it comes to the theme of rags-to-riches?
A: The interesting thing about films is that you can never predict them much, but the way this film is going, it has somewhere touched universal emotion. It has emotion which is working universally, so in a true sense, it is a human story and it is not area centric. In India, I am not sure about the English version, people might have some problem with the English version because of the language.
It is the same problem I faced when I was doing Warrior. When it came out in Europe everyone was fascinated but when it came to India, everyone started talking about the historic ground of the story – how are the people of Rajasthan going from there to Kullu, what tribe was this, etc etc. They started digging out historical facts but it was a story of violence, a fable.
This film also might face the same problem in the English version where slum boys speak English – some people might pick up this point and say how can slum boys speak English? But the idea is not that. The idea is just a means to communicate the story to a larger, international audience, and as I said the idea is the triumph of human spirit.
Q: Once again, thank you for joining us. Hope the film does well at the Oscars too.
A: Thank you so much.
Source: IBN Live
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Tags: A R Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Danny Boyle, Golden Glob, Irrfan speaks about Slumdog Millionaire, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE | Filed in Bollywood
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