It’s been ages since I went to the cinema, and I was feeling guilty about it. There are two or three good films currently showing, so today I went to see slumdog milliner, largely at my father’s suggestion. I think Mark Kermode was right when he said there’s a lot of slumdog and not much millionaire: Danny Boyle is good at showing us poverty. I got a real sense of what these slums are like, and yet the film has a certain beauty to it. Some of the shots are composed magnificently. Although the type of narrative structure (where the film begins almost at the end of the story) is nothing new, I think boyle constructs it especially well. Having said that, I found the way in which jamal got some of the answers from those scenarios a little far fetched. Also, he admitted to murder, yet ends the film free and very rich.

Now, in comments, dad asked my opinion on the scene where the kids are blinded so they can become more lucrative beggars (it made me thankful for the fact I can’t sing, for once). I don’t think anyone in their right mind would condone that, not even the most extreme disability rights lobbyists. This is not to imply that I think blindness is bad, or any other disability, but come on guys: seeing must be better than not seeing, just as tasting is better than not tasting. If you have an ability of any kind, to get rid of it or to have it taken from you must not be good. Nor do I think that the director is being disablist by putting this in, for some would argue that he’s associating blindness with pity and inferiority. I can believe that some ruthless assholes actually do this to kids in India, and that boyle is merely portraying a reality.

I really should go to the flicks more often. This film had me on the edge of my wheelchair – I was almost shouting the final answer at the screen. It also reminded me how long its been since I had a curry.