Funny, shocking and turbo-charged, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire has been referred to as a film version of Usain Bolt’s Olympic sprint.
Set in modern day Mumbai, horror and joy collide when an 18 year old tea-vendor Jamal Malik flukes his way onto Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, and gets through round after round. To the surprise and suspicion of host Prem Kumar, the youngster is tortured by the local police in an attempt to learn how he knew the answers to the TV show questions. What follows are schematic flashbacks in which he amasses the facts. From this we get a fragmented biography of the boy and the narrative structure is perfect for a restless director like Boyle. This film is important part of contemporary cinema, and is an advertisement for the dramatic potential of the non-Western city.
Our next choice is fronted by the beautiful Kate Winslet who plays Hanna in The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry. Set in a provincial town in 1950’s West Germany, Hanna stumbles across a very ill Michael (David Kross) and an affair begins, which involves him reading to her from classics such as Rilke, Homer and Chekhov. To cut a long story short, and not to ruin the film, she vanishes and years later, now a law student Michael finds himself watching in horror as he sees Hanna on trial and being sentenced for SS participation. The film then forwards to Michael as an older man, now played by Ralph Fiennes, coming to terms with his feelings for Hanna, and reignites his relationship with her. See this film if you like issues on trust, war, love and understanding.
So, there are t5m’s recommendations for a cold weekend. We’re also looking forward to seeing Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, opening tonight. Review coming next week!
Hanna Bayatti
