Slum-dog Millionaire - A Masterpiece!

Hello peeps :)

In spite of a very tiny minute comments, which I am not even going to mention so as not to tarnish the beauty of that masterpiece, I would like to state out loud that Danny Boyle is one of the greatest directors of our time and his movie (Slum-dog Millionaire) is one of the greatest films in the history of cinema.

There can be hundreds of reasons for my deep appreciation, which comes only rarely with this intensity. I will try to brief them in the coming few points. 

What Danny Boyle had:

1. Very limited financial resources, 
2. Over-crowded shooting locations (which can be a headache to any film crew),
3. Untrained cast (most of the actors were not professional ones),
4. A visible linguistic barrier,
5. Certain thorny issues to deal with (religion, prostitution, national sensitivities, to name a few),
6. A very old plot that was dealt with numerously - so he had to twist it around and tackle it differently for authenticity and novelty, and
7. Had to match between the film being a Western production (the language mostly, as well as the nationalities of most of the film crew) and the Indian print (the country, the actors, the story).

Give this to any director, and he/she will give you a mediocre film, however with good intentions. But no. Danny Boyle gave us 8 OSCARS.

The way he used the flashback tool was phenomenal. There are scenes still lingering in my head as a result of the intensity of the film.
The way he got the best out of the young "actors"- especially the children (amazing kids- especially the kid in the photo here).

The way the story was organized in such a way that keeps you on your toes with anticipation, empathy, disbelief (that there are people that live in such dire conditions) and amazement with the carefully-picked shooting angles and landscape (every single one of them is meaningful). 

Superb cinematography indeed. 

Just a reminder of who Danny Boyle is: His most memorable movies include The Beach and Trainspotting.

Anyway, I just thought Slumdog Millionaire is an intense EXPERIENCE in itself and had to be shared.

Why am I writing?

First of all, I just couldn't wait to share my feelings with you (whoever that is), no matter how bitter or sweet these feelings might just sound. I didn’t really choose my timing, that is, I suddenly felt that the author's block that took a grip of my mind for the past two years has unexpectedly dissolved. And so here I am, bear with me and as you read on you will discover that a part of every single one of you is represented here.

For the past very few decades of my life (Three, as I am turning 30 soon, though I really feel 21), I have been a firm believer that life is a bunch of choices, which consequently makes smart people ultimate winners. I also used to think of myself as one of 'em smart ones that are in control of their destinies. But, and for some reason, I am led to believe that I am not totally in control of everything I choose and that –as they say- the road is my driver, not the other way around.

This epiphany came to me one (guess it was an insignificant Tuesday) evening for many reasons that are hard to enumerate in a single written piece, but you might deduce from the overall content of the Blog Spot. I never really in my life liked to think of myself as a loser, and never knew how to feel "cool" about failure. Everything to me was mathematical equations that were well calculated.

It is the same feeling that you get when you go for a dress that is your style, your color, and your size- it just has got to be the right dress for you. But when you go home and someone just throws a killing remark such as "it just doesn't look right on you", you immediately start thinking "where did I go wrong? Was it the fabric? Was it the brand???" anything but tell yourself that in spite of the fact that "mathematically speaking" it is "your dress", it might simply be a wrong choice for reasons that might just be "beyond your comprehension". ' But no, we don't like to think that anything is beyond our comprehension. We are the ones that choose what is good for us and what is not.

Well, the dress might have been a very silly metaphorical simplification, but really go beyond the dress to a job that is well-paid, in line with your past experience, prestigious, and with decent office hours… but for a, again, "beyond comprehension" reason, it is not as interesting as you thought it would be. Call me crazy but this is how I felt about every single job I ever occupied, including my current one. No matter how excited I am about a new post, and no matter how much I think that this will be "the one", it never satisfies my thirst for achievement. Some people thought that maybe the problem lies in me; I am the one who'd always placed my expectations above "normal standards"… But what are those? Are they written in some manual? "The normal standards and expectations in life" by Mr./Ms. Knows-it-all?

Well, come to think of it, maybe, but I am sick and tired of being the one to blame for the failure of most of my plans. There must be (and there are) other reasons that contribute to this series of unfortunate events in my life that have led me to write whatever I am writing now. Maybe I am too emotional, not-so-emotional, rational, irrational… I don’t know how to think of myself anymore. I am a very changing person as time goes by. Whatever traits were in me 10 years ago are just not here anymore as I am writing this down.

"You grew up that's all" is the recurrent "already-tailored" explanation of my mom who always thought that not facing yourself with your regrets was a good way for moving on. This epiphany, and as you will read over the coming few pages, is not just to reassess where I stand with the love and career matters, but also to see if I can by going through my past rediscover where I stand in life as a whole now and kind of foresee where I am going from hitherto. I wonder if I was the one who set all my priorities in life or was it society (meaning by that my family, friends, school, work colleagues, etc..). Sometimes it is really hard to see the thin red line, isn't it?