Danny Boyle makes out like a MillionaireDirector danny Boyle doesn’t shy from the rough stuff, whether it’s the drug culture in Trainspotting or the zombies in 28 Days Later. His latest, Slumdog Millionaire
(now playing), a romantic melodrama set in Mumbai’s slums, is more
upbeat. In it, a kid from the streets wins 10 million rupees on a game
show and gets interrogated by the police for cheating. They torture him
with electrodes. It’s a crowd-pleaser!
Q: Is this an optimistic film despite the poverty, injustice, evil, and misery?
A: I
think most of my films are optimistic, even if some of them haven’t got
obvious happy endings. I find that confirmed in India. I love the
place; they had to drag me away in the end. I couldn’t stop filming,
despite all its horror. I saw a lot of [Mumbai], where we made most of
the film. I really adored it and what it did to me as a director,
because it does change you. You can’t just wade in there and say,
“Here’s my next film, it’s going to be like this”; you have to go with
the place and let it take you over.
Q: Do you think you’ll have problems with censors in India?
A: Yes.
We lied about a lot of what we were doing, so we’re bound to have
trouble. Ironically, the torture scene at the beginning, we didn’t lie
about, we asked for permission for that because you can’t be tricky
with the police stuff, you gotta be careful because they can make a lot
of problems for you. We showed them the scene and they said, “It’s
fine, you can do the torture scene, providing nobody above the rank of
inspector is involved.” It gives you a glimpse of what it’s like in the
police station. If you get arrested for anything other than a traffic
offense, you have a good chance of getting slapped around.
Q: And you love this place.
A:
Yeah. Considering how intense the population is, there is a calmness
that is beyond belief. It’s just so crowded and there are so many
people, you just wonder how does this ever work? But it does; they find
a way.
