Review of "Slumdog Millionaire" (Editing)

                Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of Jamal, a former urchin from the slums of India, who has managed to become a contestant on the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and has made it to the final question. However, Jamal is accused of cheating in order to win and is taken in for questioning. As Jamal is asked how he managed to answer all of the questions correctly, we are shown a series of flashbacks that both show what led him to know the answers and provides valuable backstory for Jamal. Through these flashbacks we learn that Jamal’s reason for becoming a contestant on the show was in the hope that Latika, a childhood friend he had spent most of his life looking for, would be watching and would see him. While rather unnoticeable unless you are paying attention, which is, of course, a good thing, the editing used to present Slumdog Millionaire is fantastic. While the film does employ the more common editing techniques of montages, reaction shots, shot/reverse shots, the 180 degree rule, and transitions between shots, it is the use of establishing shots, TV style editing, and overlapping editing that makes the film truly shine.

                Barring a few instances when Slumdog Millionaire is purposefully confusing the viewer by providing little to no context to what is going on onscreen, it is very good about using establishing shots to clearly define where the current action is taking place. Throughout the film we catch glimpses of what Jamal is currently going through as well as flashbacks to his childhood and flashbacks to the time he has already spent participating in the game show, establishing the story piece by piece. As such, there are a great number of different locations shown onscreen. In the present, Jamal is in a local police station, in the recent past Jamal is, of course, on the set of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and during his childhood and early adolescent years Jamal travels all over India. Once the viewer has figured out the relationship between the flashbacks, the establishing shot becomes a key element in keeping the audience from getting confused, especially during the childhood flashbacks. Through his childhood alone, Jamal travels from the slums, to a camp of children being forced to beg on the streets, to spending life on a train, to the Tajma Hall, to several locations in Mumbai, and so on. Each of these areas is first accompanied by a series of establishing shots, without which keeping up with where the characters are at any given time would be nearly impossible.

During the game show flashbacks and, later, the final night of Jamal’s run on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, TV style editing is used. The viewer feels as though they are actually watching a game show as opposed to a scene in a movie. Throughout these scenes the camera swivels around to show either or both Jamal and the host, the questions and answer choices are constantly present onscreen, and the audience and their reactions are shown occasionally.

Finally, the film employs the use of overlapping editing. As the beginning credits roll, we see a top-down view of someone filling a bathtub with money. This scene seems strange and out of place until it appears later, near the end of the film. As it turns out, this scene is part of the film’s climax. Salim has locked himself in a bathroom with the money in order to distract his boss, the leader of a vicious gang, so that Latika, who had been being held against her will, can escape. Another reoccurring scene that appears throughout the movie from the beginning to almost the very end is that of a woman standing next to a moving train. At first, the viewer does not know who she is or what she has to do with the current situation. However, it is later revealed that this woman is, in fact, Latika and that she is the driving force behind the entire plot. Without the audience even knowing, they have just been shown the answer as to why Jamal was able to correctly answer the questions posed to him during the game show. It was the journey leading up to this scene that taught Jamal everything he needed to know.

                If Slumdog Millionaire had not been edited the way it was, the story would not have unfolded in such an impactful way. The editing allowed the audience to know only as much of the story at a time as the director wanted them to. For its clever combination of plot and editing, I highly recommend Slumdog Millionaire.