Slumdog Millionaire

Thisis from the much talked about score of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ composed by A.R.Rahman. A.R.Rahman with his background score and that song in the end credits seems to hit bull’s eyes with Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.



It is being discussed in some forums that the score is too loud for the visuals. But we can’t speak about the score’s appropriateness without watching the whole movie. We can understand the approach of the composer and a director towards a movie’s background score and their intention for choose loud music pieces only after watching the whole movie.

From what I read, Danny Boyle seems to have asked for not so subtle score, I guess he asked for a very Bollywoodish score in a way that Hollywood can understand and relate to. Rahman has clearly chosen a middle path and gone for Sitarock in this scene, which even otherwise sounds pretty apt for the scene. The mild understated strains of Guitar for Jamal and Lathika finding each other is just right for the emotions both the characters go through after they see each other, they haven’t yet bought the joy or surprise of seeing each other. So there is no loud string section instantly taking off as their eyes meet and if it was done in that way, then that is what one can call as a loud background score. Before they could experience the complete joy and the surprise of spotting each other, few strangers storm from somewhere to abduct Lathika which is conveyed quite well by playing Sitar and loud strings with rocky percussions.