Reviews

Well, it comes as no surprise that PTA's latest effort is highly polarizing; personally, I believe The Master serves as further confirmation that he's a top notch filmmaker. JP's acting was out of this world and PSH wasn't far behind. The movie was exquisitely shot as well. Of course the story wasn't ultimately fulfilling, but isn't that the point? How could a charismatic huckster on a messiah trip and a highly unstable human ruin tormented by the lingering insanity of war make for a tidy little happy ending? Freddie drunkenly laughing up bits of the false prophet's bewitching shtick on the woman from the bar was a perfectly fitting, albeit disheartening, conclusion to the story PTA seemingly wanted to tell.

The second skeptic that Freddy attacks has Dodd down cold (first rate mystic whose writings/philosophy are a twisted mess) and I think Freddie knows it, which is why he lashes out in mad rage against the unwitting messenger. Freddie is a wreck with nowhere else to turn (the totemic girl he idealizes absurdly is of course long gone), so he halfheartedly staggers back to the flock. Cult of personality figureheads can't effectively run parasitic hustles with doubters in their midst though, so Freddie can't stay without blindly offering up his soul. Organized religion in general is fraught with such complications running counter to the teachings of actual prophets who preach truths too universal to be wielded as weapons or shackles. Fear and coercion always enter the equation when human hierarchies are built upon timeless cosmic wisdom which is why the truly enlightened never teach that salvation is to be found within exclusive clubs. After all, one can't serve man and God and organized religion is clearly a convention of man. Conscience is our window to the divine, our bodies are holy temples and every moment of every day is potentially an hour of worship. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and love your neighbor as you love yourself are all the spirituality anyone really needs. The rest is either a reiteration of the same theme or else deceitful smoke, mirrors and power tripping. You are the lamp to light the way. (Gotta love Buddha and Jesus, regardless of the shortcomings of organizations claiming to disseminate their teachings) Dodd's fraudulent egoism is irrevocably laid bare when he refuses to lovingly let Freddie go, instead vowing to torment him through future lives should they meet again. Dodd is collecting souls for his private menagerie, not setting them free. The acting in this scene is amazing. Freddie came to Dodd broken and is leaving the same way. Is it any wonder? The round trip journey he takes (that is to say, the film) is beauty, chaos, anger, hope, despair, and ultimately disappointment. I can't see why anyone would need to watch The Master ten times to understand that. Even if a person doesn't care for bummers or finds the story to be uneven, how could they deny the beautiful cinematography and world class acting? I enthusiastically loved the first half of the film and found the rest to be unsettling and finally rather discouraging. In retrospect, I realized that such a trajectory closely mirrors my perspective on the organized religion experience, be it Scientology or most of the rest of them. Religion being an infamously divisive subject however, I can certainly understand why a film like The Master would inspire such passionate differences of opinion. 9/10

I feel that this is a worthwhile film that has some beautiful moments, especially in the first half hour or so. That said, while it seemed at first that Slumdog might actually live up to the enormous hype, things started getting a bit silly when the boys reached Agra. Having spent several months in India over the course of two trips, the Taj scenes were far-fetched at best and I was never really hypnotized by the film again after that. Security is very tight at the Taj and street urchins operating a stolen shoe ring simply wouldn't happen as you don't take your shoes off until you're well past the military style checkpoint that "slumdogs" would never be able to pass. This in itself didn't ruin the film or anything, but starting with those scenes my suspension of disbelief generally faltered and the whole thing began to feel somewhat contrived. I suppose the writer's desire to plug in the trusty old "rags to riches" story was probably the main reason for this as VERY FEW Indian street kids ever climb the social ladder. I feel that Jamal losing out on the money but finally rescuing the girl would have made for a more realistic (and artistically apropos) ending. Concerning Jamal, I also failed to see any physical resemblance between the adult version and the two younger ones. Actually, Dev Patel has a significantly lighter complexion than any of the actors who played Salim, Latika, or the younger Jamal.

Ultimately, it seems to me that the gaggle of Oscars might actually damage Slumdog's reception somewhat as they inevitably lead one to believe that this is a once in a generation type of film. Simply put, it's not. For my money, City of God was a better executed film about street kids and Born into Brothels (while a documentary) was a superior chronicle of the Indian variety. Oh well. Slumdog is still worth seeing, it's just not quite worthy of the hype. 7/10