Last time a Danny Boyle flick ventured into a ?third world country?, it was to the discordant sound of local protests. In order to make Thailand?s Maya Bay more ?paradise-like? for The Beach, his 20th Century Fox production bulldozed through the local sand dunes and palm groves. It was only the 2004 tsunami, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, that returned the film?s setting to its original character. On top of its environmentally controversial interventions, the film had Thais squirming over seeing their culture reduced to stereotypes like snake blood salesmen, dope farmers and crooked cops.
This time around, in shooting Slumdog Millionaire in India, Boyle has done a U-turn. Consider that even in shooting at crowded Mumbai locations, he steered clear of the kind of hype that say A Mighty Heart attracted. This time around he was on a modest indie budget, wary of acting like an ?invading army,? and respectful of his setting?s identity as one of world?s major filmmaking centres. Ergo, he elevated his casting director Loveleen Tandon?s credits to co-director, forwent clearing off the city?s streets for just shooting them live, took in Loveleen?s point that shifting a substantive chunk of the film?s dialogue to Hindi would be ?a massive liberation?, hired plenty of local talent instead of flying in loads of ?gringos?, and chose to conclude the film with a grand Bollywood-style sequence.
Now that the film has won four Golden Globes and built up lots of Oscar buzz, the Hollywood meets Bollywood chestnut will once again be bandied about with rigour. This is a clich? that usually works in the reverse, say when homegrown queen Mira Nair etches a Vanity Fair. It?s also beginning to sound archaic. Take AR Rahman for example. Sure, it?s great that an Indian has won a Golden Globe for the best original music score in a motion picture for the first time. But isn?t this the Indian whom we have long loved for eclectically bringing to our shores everything from Sufi mysticism to rap, hip-hop and Broadway-style orchestra? Plotting his identity between Hollywood and Bollywood, between the symphonies and the ragas, is kind of like drawing a line in the sand.