Monday:
We watched Slumdog Millionaire. I've seen this film before and have thoroughly enjoyed watching it on the big screen for 14 weeks.
I decided to a running description throughout the film:
The start of the film is about a kid called Jamal who was brought up in the slums of Mumbai. He works for a mobile phone company. From the start it is apparent he is being interrogated about how he cheated, at this stage we guess he cheated on the game show 'Who wants to be a millionaire'. He was one question away from the million but was the first person to be so close to it. Everyone believes him cheated how can a street kid know so much? I kind of wonder if somehow the questions that are being asked in the game show somehow relate to Jamal and when he was growing up. Throughout Jamal’s flashbacks from when he is being interrogated to the present day, you see this pretty girl appear in them.
When they were young Jamal and his brother Salim always together, you never saw them apart. Their brotherly love is to powerful. You see their mother being brutally murdered y an anti-Muslim group; in turn the brothers run away and rough it in, a industrial site when you see this girl appear. Jamel accepts her into the "family" as she was alone standing in the rain. After a while Jamal describes them as the three musketeers (this is related to one of the questions on the game show). All three get mislead by a sick man. At this stage it is not apparent who he is. He pretends to care about deprived and homeless children. He feeds them and puts a roof over the kids and teaches them the national anthem. Once they have learnt it the man blinds them as they earn double on the streets for begging.
The story progresses and you see the “three musketeers” at their pre-adolescent teens in their flashbacks. In the game show Jamal is continuing to get the correct answers.
In the story line there is a sense Jamal is still longing for Latkia. However, she is being sold as a child prostitute by the man who cared for them when they was homeless after Jamal and Salim ran away and left Latika behind. Salim has always hated and objected to Jamal and Latikas bond to one another.
After the brotherly love broke down after Salim raped Latkia in a drunken rage, now grown up Salim works for a dangerous drugs lord who originally operated in their slum as a child. After years of searching, Jamal gains entry to his grand mansion to see Latika but she begs him to forget her.
So far in the film we have seen how the “three musketeers” grow within Jamal’s flashbacks, which have all lead to the present day. After all the interrogating the police have decided that he hasn’t been cheating and is released to appear on the game so to win the million. Over the two nights Latika has been watching, Salim still sees the connection and sets her free to find her life with Jamal. He completely undermines the drug lord and is killed for his betrayal. Jamal answers the final question, the nation go wild as the Slumdog wins Who wants to be a millionaire.
Tuesday - Video EXPO at Earls Court.
I thought the whole event was really intresting, only thing i disliked about it all was everyone was always trying to sell you something. However, the new technologies that are on offer and coming out in the future are all fantasic. Over at the JVC stand they was explaing their new 2D to 3D converter. This unit takes the 2D signal and on its output gets converted into 3D. They was also showing off their 2 in 1 TV all this is, is that it can display 2D and 3D content. This is so consumers can keep up with the changing technology or even making the change over from 2D to 3D a whole lot simpler for consumers.
Over at Technodolly they was showing off their Automatic Camera Crane, this uses a computer to plot key points of the action and the automatically moves the Camera Crane smootly to these key-points in sequence. Although i think this technology could be quite handy in some productions, but i feel this is putting Jib operators out of a job in some respects. If we have robots to do all our work where will we end up? perhaps lazy people who just push buttons and these jobs will be extremely hard to come across.
Thursday -Momento
We watched momento, this film was directed and screenplay by Christopher Nolan. It opens with Teddy just being killed by Leonard for the rape and killing of his wife. The film is not like most others where you would hve the start, middle and end. This film tells the story from end to start, as it is always going backwards in the story the audience is constantly receiving new information to why Leonard killed teddy.
The end of act 1 you see Leonard turn up to Natalies house and asks who the hell is Todd.
The point of no return in the act is when Leonard is burning objects from his past, in other words burning his memories.
At the end of act 2 you see Natalie playing with Leonards condition. Leonard hits her which causes her to bleed, but when she leaves the house for a few mins and returns Leonard forgets what he has done and askes whats happened. Natalie blames someone that she works for.
The climax of the film is when Leonard kills Teddy at the end of the film. However, the hook is in the fisrt scene when you see Teddy dead by Leonard.
I thought this film was confusing at first and didn't understand what was going on, but it explained itself. Momento is one of those films that says "hey im not going to follow the rules of other films", untraditional but effective story telling.
