Monika’s Pensieve

I’m getting more and more excited about the film - can’t wait until it finally makes it into cinemas here!
I’ve been trying to follow the response in India and it’s quite peculiar. On the one hand there’s a lot of praise for Danny Boyle and a lot of excitement about A. R. Rahman’s Golden Globe win and even more about his Oscar nominations (he has three! one for Best Soundtrack and two for Best Song and apparently it’s only the third and fourth time that a foreign language song has been nominated). But there’s been a lot of strange controversies too. I dare say some of them have been falsely created by the media (in particular by misquoting Indian celebrities to make it sound like they hated the film), but some seem to be happening for real.
There’s been an outcry of the nationalist element in India that the film portrays India in bad light because of the poverty and slum theme and on the other side of the spectrum the film is getting slack for glamorising poverty. To this the NGOs reply that the film just portrays reality :]
There has also been a court case against the film. It is alleged that the title is disrespectful because it suggests that slum dwellers are dogs.
And if that’s not enough, some Shiv Sena activists have attacked a multiplex cinema because they disapprove of the way Lord Ram is portrayed in the film.
So, er, a lot of very exciting reactions ;) I think that means the film must be good lol

So to the interviews now ;) Below is a clip of the two main leads of the film on the Ellen show:

And here’s a clip of Danny Boyle and Darren Aronofsky interviewing each other about their films (I love the bit where they discuss India):

You can see more of their interview here.

Edited To Add: Just came across an article in which a well-known Bollywood director (Priyadarshan) is slamming the film and doing it so vehemently that I kind of doubt it could be a misquote :]