Tuesday, February 17, 2009
"Slumdog Millionaire" was by far the best movie I had seen in a long time. When it was released it was virtually unknown, but quickly catapulted to one of 2008's best films by word of mouth, online reviews, and In the words of Kanye, "you are super irrelevant right now" if you haven't seen the movie lol. Its up for 10... TEN... TEEEENNN freakin Oscars, and its well deserved.
The movie is basically about a boy from the slums that gets on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" and wins, despite having no education and being raised in poverty. He then shows how he knew each question based upon his life experiences. Check it out... for real
A recent article from the Associated Press released about an hr ago caught my attention. The author catches up with 2 of the children in the movie that play the main characters when they were younger. I was surprised to discover that the kids were actual impoverished children that the filmmakers casted. 10 year old Azharuddin Mohammed and 9 year old Rubina Ali Qureshi, despite having large roles in one of last year's biggest films, still live in the slums.
The article goes into detail about the filmmakers initial struggle on whether to use children from the slums for the roles, but eventually decided to use them to not play into the prejudice people already against them.
The filmmakers paid the kids for 30 days of acting work, gave the families a monthly stipend, and set up a trust fund that the kids can use after they graduate. As you can imagine, their lives dramatically changed when the film was released. The parents said they had to keep their kids home from school because of all the journalists and reporters swarming the school.
Rubina's family demanded more money to buy a home and a car when the film began to gain the family all types of fame and exposure, so the filmmakers wired her money. However, both family's still live in the same conditions and most likely used the money for everything else but that lol.
Personally, I think the whole situation is tragic, especially since everyone, including myself, would imagine someone in the same position as the children, to become instantly rich and improve their living status. However, the reality of the situation is shocking. Their level of poverty is so extreme that the young actors themselves didn't experience the happy ending like the one in "Slumdog Millionaire".
Hopefully their lives will improve, but for now, these impoverished children have to settle for more paparazzi than wealth.
Its amazing how both of the families were present in the most fashionable attire on the red carpet at the movie's opening night. But immediately after, they had to return to reality, which for them.... is the slums
`Slumdog Millionaire' kid stars face uphill battle
PEACE
Labels: oscars, poverty, slumdog millionaire
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