Local Sentiments and Global Spectacle: Deewar and Slumdog Millionaire
Local Sentiments and Global Spectacle: Deewar and Slumdog Millionaire

Summary/Abstract: This essay studies Slumdog Millionaire’s intricate relationship with Deewar to foreground how it is inspired by and yet remains distanced from some of the basic tropes of popular Hindi cinema. Deewar uses its melodramatic conventions to play with the sentiments of its protagonists to create its conflicts, whereas Slumdog Millionaire restages events from the past of its protagonists for its reality show which is showcased as a spectacle for a global audience. This essay, therefore, analyzes sentiments as undergirding the narratives of both these films revolving primarily around the lives of siblings, and argues for its preeminence in Deewar and its subsidiary role in Slumdog Millionaire wherein it serves the purposes of the spectacle, to foreground the changes necessitated by the transnational adaptation of a canonical Hindi film for a global market. Futhermore, this essay studies the differences in such representation of sentiments through the temporality of narratives, which is mainly structured through flashbacks and transitions, and the specificity of Slumdog Millionaire's protagonist who, though having his provenance in popular Hindi cinema, inhabits the spaces of both a popular television show and a transnational film unlike his counterpart in Deewar who, rooted to his past, is subsumed by trauma.

• Details
• Contents