Film Analysis:
Slumdog Millionaire, an intrinsic and captivating movie, captured the minds of its audience by using new and original styles to create a story unparalleled in its originality and allure. The movie opens up with a young man, Jamal, about to take on the last question on the show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” He is taken and interrogated before the final question, because he is a common boy from common backgrounds. The film, which can be considered a mix of drama and suspense, accomplishes its success in these by employing flashbacks; the use of a common theme, otherwise known as similarity and repetition; and disunity. These narrative and stylistic techniques come together to create great film.
Slumdog Millionaire, most notably, makes incredible use of flashbacks. This narrative technique was huge throughout the entire story, as practically the entire story is told through the use of flashbacks. It achieves a feeling of satisfaction each time one flashback is fulfilled. As Jamal sits and gets interrogated for each question that he had correct, he tells the story back to the police officers by citing past experiences. These stories turn into flashbacks, a motif that ends up playing into the second point, similarity and repetition. Each time a question was asked and a flashback was employed it created a story in and of itself and helped to build up to the climax and suspense at the end by creating a background story. When he was asked how he knew who the first maker of a revolver was, for example, a flashback was used that told the story of his brother killing a man who had kept his brother, him, and his friend Latika as working slaves for a time. This flashback helped the story develop by introducing complex problems like his brother’s loss of innocence along with his betrayal of Jamal. In the end, it creates emotion and drama as Salim, the brother, seeks to right his own wrong by making it up to Jamal.
The second effect, a more stylistic rather than narrative technique, is the use of similarity and repetition. The common motifs that continue through the film help create drama and help achieve a highly emotional result. The flashbacks, in fact, play a huge role in developing the similarity and repetition. A common theme throughout the film and throughout the flashbacks is Jamal’s love for Latika. He is constantly seeking her out after they become friends at a young age; he is constantly trying to find the love of his life. Usually, in the flashbacks, he finds Latika only to have her taken away from him. This love that is established multiple times is the base almost all of the drama during the movie. The crux of the movie, the climax, occurs at the end after the story becomes real time and the flashbacks stop. He is again separated from the love of his life and is on a quest to get her back while appearing on the show and answering the twenty million Rupees question. Repetition can also be sited in the case of Salim. Salim as a young child becomes a criminal and continues being until his death. A specific theme in his life is his killing of the mob bosses by shooting them. Each time it contributes to drama by his loss of innocence in the first killing and later his loss of life in the second killing.
Disunity plays just as much of an important role in the film as similarity and repetition does. Several of the themes and unities created by the flashbacks, such as the loss the one he loves, Latika, each time he finds her, are broken near the end and help to create suspense. Her disappearance constantly creates sadness throughout the film; however, at the end, joy and contentment is achieved by the disunity of this pattern developed throughout the movie. Another huge pattern that is created throughout the film, by the use of flashbacks, is Jamal’s knowledge of the answer to each question by his past experiences. This theme is broken at the end when he does not know the answer to the final question, what was the name of the third musketeer. Jamal acknowledges that he doesn’t actually know this one and ends up making a blind guess after talking to Latika. This disunity greatly adds to suspense by taking away the viewer’s surety that Jamal would get the question correct. In fact, not only that he doesn’t have previous knowledge of the event, but the very fact that the film discontinues its theme of flashbacks adds to the suspense at the end. This too takes away the viewer’s surety of Jamal’s future.
All together, the themes of disunity, similarity and repetition, and narrative technique of flashbacks, add to drive the suspense and drama in Slumdog Millionaire. They help to make the movie a memorable experience for all who watch it!
Cabellorojo 