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Reviews
Final Solution (2004)
Propaganda
This movie is not "totally based on fact" or "balanced", as some other reviewers would like you to believe, it is quite the contrary. The movie shows too many exaggerated and false claims on the one side, and when an interview with a Hindu is shown, they picked the Hindu with the most extreme opinion they could find. The movie also does not say that about one third of the riot victims were Hindus, or that Modi and his government did all they could to stop the riots. For a more balanced perspective than this propaganda movie, read the book "Gujarat after Godhra: Real violence, selective Outrage" by Dr. Koenraad Elst and Prof. Ramesh N. Rao, or "Gujarat Riots: The true story".
That Muslims (and Hindus) were victims in this violence is bad, and Hindu-Muslim riots are not a rarity in South Asia (but this movie lays all the blame only on Hindus, and shows Muslims as the eternal victims). All those who talk endlessly about the Gujarat riots won't say a word about the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, of the 1 to 3 million Hindus murdered in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, or the state-sponsored Anti-Sikh riots, or indeed about the persecution Hindus and Christians suffer every day in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The riots started after 60 Hindus (including women and children) were burned in a train by a Muslim mob - and to this day, political extremists try to claim that the Godhra train burning was only an accident. The Godhra train burning happened in reaction to the Ayodhya debate (see the books by Sita Ram Goel and Harsh Narain for the best overview on this debate).
Because of such propaganda, Narendra Modi was denied a visa to the United States, which has unnecessarily strained India-US relations. However, Modi has received a "clean chit" over his role in the Gujarat riots, no riots have happened since then in 12 years of Modi-ruled Gujarat (which is not the case in the rest of India and South Asia), and just some days ago Modi has been elected Prime Minister of India. The people of India have made it clear that they are not going to believe in lies and propaganda forever.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Not worth your time, highly overrated
This is one of those films that are highly overrated. This movie is just plain boring and also at a very low artistic level. There is just nothing worthwhile in this film.
Slumdog is based on the novel by Vikram Swarup, from which it deviates significantly (which Vikram Swarup confirmed). The movie seriously distorts the book. In the book, the protagonist is named Ram Mohammed Thomas, a name that represents both Paganism and Monotheism, and the religion of Ram remains unknown. But the movie changed his name to Jamal Malik, a fully Muslim name. Furthermore, in the movie Jamal's mother is killed by Hindus, while the Hindu god Rama presides over it. In short, the plot was changed into a "communalized", anti-Pagan plot.
As Dr. Koenraad Elst observed in his review of this movie, "the effect is to drive the nail deeper into the coffin of Hinduism's former reputation for tolerance and confirm its newly crafted image as hateful and a threat to non-Hindus. " The movie was thus justifiably criticized also by India watchers Jeanne Devos, François Gautier, and Rajiv Malhotra, and in the review by Salman Rushdie, who didn't like it either.
The director Danny Boyle once said that his boyhood dream was to become a missionary, and that the same spirit still influences him. Boyle also said that he made the film in part because he was unfamiliar with India - and it shows.
It's a disgrace to the Academy that this movie won the Awards, when much better movies with India as a theme have not, like Wes Anderson's excellent "Darjeeling Limited". I also found Boyle's earlier film "Trainspotting" much overrated (watch "Another Day in Paradise" or "Drugstore Cowboys" instead of that crap).