Cast of Slumdog Millionaire return to Mumbai
- 00:01:27
- ITN
Cast of Slumdog Millionaire return to Mumbai
The stars of hit movie Slumdog Millionaire have returned to Mumbai ahead of the film's release in India. Director Danny Boyle dismissed criticism that the film glamorised poverty in India, saying the film was meant to capture the city's "lust for life". The Golden Globe winning film charts a rags-to-riches story of a boy competing on TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. "The thing that I wanted people to take away from the film was ... this breathtaking, breathtaking resilience of people and the joy of people despite their circumstances, that lust for life," Boyle said. "What we tried to do in the film was include as much of the city as possible." About half of Mumbai's 17 million people are homeless, and many of those live on the streets or in slums that lack even basic facilities such as running water and toilets. The unpaved alleys, open sewers and tiny shacks of a teeming Mumbai slum are faithfully reproduced in the film, which swept the Golden Globe awards this month. But some Indian newspapers and TV channels have criticized Boyle for romanticising slums and peddling such grim realities as begging rackets, prostitution and crime as "Indian exotica." The film has sparked a debate on whether such "poverty porn" reinforces Western stereotypes about the country. Slumdog Millionaire opens in Indian cinemas on January 23, a day after this year's Oscar nominations are revealed. But Boyle, who made the acclaimed Trainspotting in 1996, is not holding out for a sweep at the Academy Awards. "You can't expect anything really," he said.
ITN | January 21, 2009
