Thursday, April 9, 2009

Jamal was almost perfect; and Salim was more like a regular human being...

Jamal in the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire" was almost flawless in character. He was compassionate to give shelter to Latika who just lost her parent and gave $100 to his blind begging friend Javed on a Bombay street. He was courageous to rescue Latika from a local gang. He was honest to give detective complete account of the story. However, he and his brother did cheat (pretending to be tourist guides) at a famous Indian museum to earn innocent American tourists' dollars.

Jamal's brother, Salim, on the other hand, was a complex character. On one hand, Salim was courageous not to follow Mr. Chi's direction to betray his brother. Salim also help Jamel to rescue Latika from Mr. Chi. At the end of the story, he helped Latika escape knowing in doing so, he could be killed by the gang. On the other hand, Salim was also selfish. He locked up his brother in the outhouse so that Jamal could not get the autograph from a famous movie star; he turned his back when Latika asked silently to come to the shelter with the boys (Later, he reluctantly allowed his brother inviting Latika to join them by pretending to be asleep.) The most ugly part in Salim was he forced his brother Jamal at a gun point to give up Latika and took Latika by force.

The complex characters in Salim are almost reflection of a real human being at different circumstances.

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