The Times of India
Slumdog success helps Chinese critics to complain about lack of freedom 2 Mar 2009, 1748 hrs IST, Saibal Dasgupta, TNN
BEIJING: Chinese critics believe that Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar awards because of its political content. Some sections of the Chinese media are using the movie to indirectly complain that Chinese film makers do not have enough freedom to depict social and economic realities.
"The fate of this movie in India displays a sharp contrast with some Chinese films," an article in China Youth Daily said. It mentioned Chinese film maker, Jia Zhangke, who won international acclaim for his film, Still Life. But Jia was was blamed for "trading the sufferings and sorrows of his motherland for the good impression of Westerners".
Slumdog Millionaire has become a widely talked about movie in China. DVDs with Chinese subtitle of the movie are being sold across the country while it is available for free viewing on several internet sites. Most newspapers and television networks have featured it. The movie has not yet been released in theatres in China.
Yang Yuanying, vice director of Film Studies at Beijing Film Academy, compared it with previous Oscar-winnings like Crash and Babel that had strong political and social content.
"Slumdog Millionaire still included such political elements as race and class," Yang was quoted in the official media as saying.
"Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire has resonated with audiences for having the guts to reveal social realities in India - police using torture to coerce a statement, the deaths of civilians out of religious conflicts, and child abductions and abuses," the China Youth Daily said. It praised the Indian government has also been praised for allowing its screening in the face of criticism from people who believed that the movie blemished the image of India.
Well known film critics Bi Chenggong and Zeng Zihang attribute the movie's success at the Oscars to its feel-good factor at a time when the United States was reeling under the financial crisis.
Bi said in an article that the showing of utter poverty in the film acted as some sort of consolation to American viewers hit by the financial slowdown. "To some degrees, it is a kind of encouragement for them not to lose heart," he said.
Another critic described it as "a delicious chicken soup for the soul" of the American people at this time.
Shanghai Business Daily published an article saying Slumdog cannot be described as an Indian version of the American dream because the film was about luck. American values are about striving for love and wealth, the writer, Wei Yingjie, said in the article. The film looks at the third world from the viewpoint of a country that had colonised India, he said while referring to its British director. Such movies do little to help understand and resolve real problems on the ground, he said.
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges