‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Tanking in India
The critically acclaimed “Slumdog Millionaire” is not doing well in its native India, Madhur Singh reports for TIME.
For many Indians, the film’s subject and treatment are familiar to the point of being banal. A lot of Indians are not keen to watch it for the same reason they wouldn’t want to go to Varanasi or Pushkar for a holiday — it’s too much reality for what should be entertainment. “We see all this every day,” says Shikha Goyal, a Mumbai-based PR executive who left halfway through the film. “You can’t live in Mumbai without seeing children begging at traffic lights and passing by slums on your way to work. But I don’t want to be reminded of that on a Saturday evening.” There is also a sense of injured national pride, especially for a lot of well-heeled metro-dwellers, who say the film peddles “poverty porn” and “slum voyeurism.”
I’m quite unlikely to get around to watching it any time soon for a different reason: the subtitles. I like reading. I like watching movies. I despise doing them simultaneously.
About James Joyner
I love subtitles. On English language movies, when I watch the DVDs, I turn on the English subtitles because often the dialogue is garbled or too muffled to hear what’s going on in the scene. Or maybe it’s just I’m getting old and losing my hearing :)
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
There are times when that’d be helpful to me but the problem is that I find them distracting — I’m subconsciously forced to read them and that takes away from the more global experience of watching the film unfold.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
To be honest, there are no movies worth watching that are not in American English.
Even British movies are crap.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
There were really only a limited amount of subtitles in this movie, although the Indian English did take a little adjustment period, but no worse than when calling your computer help line.
Pretty good movie, all in all.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
I was under the impression that it was mostly in English.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
and
Interesting. We had gotten the impression from the previews that it was subtitled and otherwise unintelligible.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
Solo and Steven have it right…I just saw SD on Saturday, and I would say less than 15% was subtitled, probably even less than 10%.
That said, I completely agree with the premise of your post, James. I probably wouldn’t want to see this if it were a well-understood part of my surroundings.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
I’ll add to what others are saying by noting that the subtitles are playfully done, not written in a boring caption style. This made watching the film very breezy, though I say that as someone who enjoys subtitled movies to begin with.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
Having yet to see Sd Mill, I can only say that James, if you have not yet watched “Das Boot” you are missing out.
For my ownself, captions are only distracting for the first 15 mins or so.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
The article says “Fox Searchlight executives say they are happy with the film’s performance, pointing out that its weekend take of $2.2 million was the highest for any Fox film released in India, and the third highest for any U.S. release ever in that country — behind Spider-Man 3 and Casino Royale.”
How is this tanking?
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
It’s only partially subtitled, if that helps. I didn’t find them distracting, and enjoyed the movie.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
I would love that even real life had some subtitles from time to time…
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0