Go to the movies

Last night I went to see a film from India, Slumdog Millionaire. It is a sort of documentary fairy tale. Now I know that is paradoxical, but so is India. It is beautiful and wretched, poor and opulent, generous and stingy. It is large and various enough to contain every human thing and some things that are supernatural. It fascinates me. I have been impressed by the art that has come out of India, which is so alien to us and yet alludes to our literature, our film, our art in our language. Because of colonialism, India has taken in our western culture and has grown stronger while we weaken.
This film takes this very topic as its theme. It is a tale about a fated romance between two young orphans. Yes, the plot is very melodramatic and it could have been awful, but it was not. I will not tell you much more, except that the film has everything a film needs to be riveting--beautiful locales, addictive plot, excellent direction. The actors are not so much characters as mediums for the plot, but that too is okay, under the circumstances. It is a broad canvas, but the details are fascinating too. Go see it while you can.
The theater was full full full of Indian families from everywhere, their tiny infants and their elderly. Yet there was not a squeak. I don't know how the parents managed it. Probably they and their children were so hungry to hear their language spoken to see their culture on the screen that they were hypnotized, even the tiny babies.