Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack, A.R. Rahman

Last week my lovely fiancée and I decided to take a break from wedding planning and go out on an old-fashioned date to dinner and a movie. The movie we saw was Slumdog Millionaire, a film about an 18 year-old orphan named Jamal from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and is poised to win the grand prize of 20 million rupees. But when the show breaks for the night, he is arrested and interrogated by a police inspector who doesn't believe a "slumdog" could know so much. Jamal tells the inspector his life story, each new stage in his tale revealing how he knew the answer to one of the questions.

Eleanor and I both enjoyed the film very much. It was a very well-made movie, with terrific cinematography, good writing and good acting--a fun ride. I remarked to her that the story was filled with contrasts pitted against each other: the rich gang lords contrasted with the orphans in the slums; the superficiality and shallowness of the game show contrasted with the gritty, authentic picture of life on the streets; the old slums and trash heaps in Mumbai contrasted with seemingly endless new construction. And this contrast of old and new came out in the music quite a bit, too. The score was written by A.R. Rahman, a composer who apparently has done a lot of Indian movies. I noticed that a lot of the music utilized modern electronics and beats, but featured traditional Indian instruments.

You can hear some samples on the Amazon product page for the soundtrack. "O... Saya," a collaboration between the composer and artist M.I.A., features a computer-altered voice singing a traditional-sounding melody above fast percussion. An uncredited editorial review on the Amazon page declares the song "a rumbling hybrid of Bollywood and hip-hop." The soundtrack also juxtaposes more ethnic music like "Ringa Ringa" (track number six) with "Latika's Theme" (track number eight), an atmospheric treatment of a theme that could fit in a variety of movies and becomes a pop song in "Dreams On Fire," the penultimate track. And the third track, "Mausam & Escape," sounds perhaps like the Indian version of "Through The Fire And Flames."

The Amazon page also quotes Kurt Loder of MTV.com as saying this: "The propulsive score, by Bollywood soundtrack auteur A. R. Rahman, is hip-hop fusion of a very up-to-date kind." I agree. Artistically, I appreciated how the fusion in the music reflected the fusion in the movie; and as a listener I enjoyed the music for adding another dimension to a very cool film.

Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack, A.R. Rahman