Slumdog Millionaire opens with a question:

Jamal Malick is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it?

A: He cheated
B: He’s lucky
C: He’s a genius
D: It was written

If you haven’t seen the film, it chronicles the life of the aforementioned Jamal. He grows up in destitute poverty, hustles tourists at the Taj Majal, and eventually finds his way onto India’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” Director Danny Boyle follows the protagonist through his horrible struggles with a jittery camera set at all sorts of different angles. India’s vibrant colors seep through the screen and depict a world where poverty and hopelessness seem to linger around every corner.

Besides the camera work and location, the unusual story structure of the movie itself helps shake people into Jamal’s unsettling world. The movie opens with a scene of torture; policemen use battery charges to give the protagonist electric shocks. There’s no definite beginning, we’re simply thrown into the story. The police suspect Jamal of cheating to win the game, and ask him how he knew the answer to each game show question. He answers by telling a story from his past; every question corresponds to a pivotal point in the young man’s life. All of his misery leads him toward winning the money. As a result of this type of Q & A, one can think of the movie as a series of chapters, with each question building towards the finale. At the end, after the protagonist wins the money and gets his girl, (in classic Hollywood / Bollywood fashion) we’re given the answer to the movie’s opening question: “D: It was written.”

If we were watching an American movie, the answer would’ve more likely been “C: He’s a genius.” Movies made in the US generally focus on characters that take action and create their own success. We celebrate Jamal because of his grit and good humor, but the world around him ultimately propels him to success. One could contrast this to the biggest blockbuster’s of American cinema. Movies as varied as Rocky, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Dark Knight, or Pirates of the Caribbean all focus on protagonists that ultimately take control and and create their own destiny (even if lip service is sometimes paid to fate).

Hollywood is especially influenced by books like Syd Field’s “Screenplay”, Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces”, and ultimately Aristotle’s “Poetics”. The general idea behind these books is to focus on a specific character living their normal life, (Act I) then have a “plot point” that forces them out of their comfort zone and propels them to take action to accomplish a goal. The second act is built around a series of escalating roadblocks that knock the hero off their course. Finally, the climax (a second plot point) occurs near the end of the film, where the protagonist takes valiant action and (usually) accomplishes their goal. Act III is the resolution; we find out what happens to the protagonist and supporting characters. Slumdog Millionaire dispatches with Act I and jumps right into the plot. However, it is similar to the ideals of Hollywood in that it focuses on one main character and uses a series of escalating events to build to a climax and happy ending.

A film often compared with Slumdog is City of God. Both movies take place in chaotic slums and tell stories about the struggles of the poor. The camera of Fernando Meirelles, the director, is equally off-kilter throughout the movie. Furthermore, almost the entire movie is a flashback of sorts, as the main protagonist, Rocket, chronicles his story of the slums.

One could argue that the similarities of the movies ends here. In City, Rocket doesn’t make himself the star of his narratives, but decides to tell stories about the lives of favela dwellers he’s known. While his life overlaps with each story, one could call him the most important player in only a handful of them. The movie is about the evolution of an urban space and the way different lives intertwine and make a place what it is. To understand the City of God, one must first know the history and stories of the people who have lived there. This is a story less about Rocket and more about the nature of Rio’s fringe cities themselves.

Shot in a crisp, cool light that bleaches out the plastered walls and sun-drenched faces, the City feels menacing, even when the gangs aren’t fighting. While the events in the favelas eventually lead us to the storyteller’s “present,” and a climax to boot, we’re not left with too much of a resolution. The slums will live on and continue to weave the same sad tales for as long as they exist. Although Rocket succeeds in becoming a photographer, the lives of so many others we’ve met throughout the film remain open ended. The tragedy of poverty remains.

Both Slumdog and City keep certain Hollywood conventions in good order while dispensing with others. In contrast, Hong Kong Auteur Wong Kar-wai creates films with radically unconventional structures. His 1994 film Chungking Express focuses on the lives of two women and two police officers. Shot in the pressure-cooked streets of Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui (the densest area of Hong Kong), the picture actually consists of two different stories linked only by location, symbolism, and character similarities.

In the first portion of the film, undercover Policeman Number 223 has been dumped by his girlfriend, May. He spends time buying cans of pineapple whose expiration date of May 1st corresponds with the one-month anniversary of his breakup with his girlfriend. On the night of May 1st, 223 consumes all 31 cans of pineapple and vows that he will fall in love with the next woman who walks into a bar he’s haunting. The woman who comes in turns out to be a woman on the run from a mob of angry Indians (they’ve made off with her drugs). 223 isn’t able to woo her, but talks to her until they both pass out at the bar. At the end of the film, 223 finds some hope in a text message from the woman, and the woman has her revenge on the drug dealer. The 2nd, longer portion tells the story of Policeman Number 663 and a woman named Faye who works at a food joint he hits up. 663 is heartbroken from a recent breakup with a flight attendant. At the end of the film, Faye herself becomes a flight attendant and it seems the couple will end up together.

As I mentioned above Wong relies on unconventional means for tying the two stories together and attempting to create one coherent project. All of the characters are loners that pass their time in various ways: pining for love, talking to inanimate objects, listening to pop music. They’re isolated, but they find ways of passing the time while hoping for something better. The two police officers both frequent the same food joint in Chungking Mansion. If you watch the film closely, you’ll catch brief glimpses of the characters from one story hanging out in the background of the other and the tie-in to both stories is the similar. Near the beginning of the movie, 223 runs into the woman he will later try to pick-up and tells us in voiceover: “I passed just .01 cm from her, but 57 hours later, I fell in love with this woman.” Something similar happens when 223 runs into Faye at the end of the first story. Again, 223 says “I passed .01 cm from her, and six hours later she fell in love with another man (who will turn out to be 663).” The unconventional shooting style of Wong, where walls, counter-tops, and food stalls often take up much of the screen, draws attention to the cramped conditions of Hong Kong itself. One could argue that the city itself is a strange sort of protagonist that ties everything together, with the other four characters playing supporting roles.

The three films I’ve mentioned differ in many ways from each other and from archetypal Hollywood genres. They also share the goal of asking larger questions about the world through unconventional style and story structure. In each film, the nature of existence itself holds ultimate sway over the fate of the characters. In Slumdog, Jamal’s destiny is explicitly said to be the cause of his success; each escalating tribulation is the ultimate cause of his happy ending. The movie brings up the interesting paradox of fictional storytelling. Most Hollywood movies try to make us feel as if the ending is indeterminate and that the actions of the characters alter the story. However, we all really know that the story itself is already decided. The answer literally is “D: It was written.”

With City of God and Chungking Express, the city itself shapes the lives of multiple characters that dwell there. Traditional story structure is dispensed with and we get multiple stories against a common backdrop. The characters have some say in their own lives, but the city itself resists any sort of real change. While not raising the question of destiny so overtly, they nonetheless challenge our assumptions about the control we have over our lives. Cities themselves are breathing entities with agendas of their own, and the best we can do is try to be happy in a world largely beyond our control. This view need not be pessimistic, as happiness comes to these characters from within, even as they struggle with obstacles around them. If Hollywood generally focuses on free-will, non-American and indie movies often provide us with a view from the other side of the coin.

>Written by d/visible contributor Kevin Clement.

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