Slumdog Millionaire: Dragons Are Better

In a life long ago, I used to study film. I would tell people, "Yeah, I'm in film school." Then they would say, "Really, effin' cool dude. What kinda films do you make?" "Oh no," I would reply, "I just study them; other people make 'em.........then I just write really obscure things about them." It was always a little tough to defend such a ridiculous course of study.

Point being that I really used to like movies; the movie theatre was like my church, my own special place. I preferred to go alone, unencumbered by chat and trite comments about previews or inevitable post movie wrap-ups. I would watch everything, take it all in and then sit through the credits without worrying about rushing. I would watch silent films for hours without sleeping, quirky avant-garde films that gave me headaches, documentaries - weirder then better, and the indies, loved the good independent films. For five years, I studied film and tried to make a career. Then one day I woke up with a kid and suddenly the only kind of movies I can watch are raw, mindless action flicks and romantic comedies. Well-written, of course, but nonetheless. Anything else just seems like work.

Case in point, I went to see Slumdog Millionaire on the recommendation of...well...everyone. And I walked out with tears streaming down my face and certain that I must be nuts. Everyone was applauding around me, spouting spontaneous praise. My brother and his partner were overwhelmed. Chris loved it. I felt like I'd just been hit over the head with a club and dragged through mind mud. For those who haven't seen it, the movie follows two orphaned brothers in the slums of India as they grow-up among desperate poverty, exploitation and violence. The main character plays "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," and wins because he's coincidentally learned the answers in episodes throughout his miserable life. For one question, he knows the composer of an obscure Indian folk song, because a child slaver forced all of the children to sing it perfectly before he maimed them for life - blindness and physical disabilities proving more lucrative on the begging circuit. Everything about this movie was powerful and raw and awful and I just couldn't enjoy it at all. It's the kid thing.

Having kids has made me soft and over-sensitive and I'm not saying that it should be otherwise. I'm just curious as to why creating two lives has made me a complete pansy in the entertainment department. And it doesn't just stop at movies; I've read exactly three non-fantasy, non-science fiction books since I had children. And Marley and Me was one of them. The days of literature are long gone, replaced by dozens of fantasy worlds, elves, fairies and a clear, clean distinction between good and evil...the dark and the light. It's so much easier living in fantasy world when child raising is so demanding, so tiring, so everything. It makes sense that I'd want to escape, but it's more than escaping. It's a kind of protective bubble, insular and cushioned. Nothing will happen to my kids in the bubble. At least, that 's my best guess as to why dragons are more palatable to me than actual human suffering, fictional or not.

One day, when they've left the bubble home, I hope I can watch some documentaries again, or read a book without magic, because I think my mind might like that. Until then, if you feel like I do, check out Wanted and The Name of the Wind and come inside the bubble.