Essay answer for Slumdog Millionaire - Narrative

Essay Answer

Section A- Narrative

Slumdog Millionaire takes a non linear approach to how the story is told. The movie tells the story in several flashbacks and parallel narratives. This being the interrogation scene from the start of the movie, Jamal playing Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and the extracts of Jamals memories of his younger life. From the beginning the audience are thrown into the story at full speed at the scene of Jamal being interrogated by the police, the audience have to work out for themselves what is happening in the present and what events came before this in order for this to be happening now. In fact, the parallel narratives can even be slightly confusing for the audience at times and they may become confused as to what is happening at what time and which is the present day and which scenes are showing past events. 

Boyle may have chosen to tell the narrative in this way to represent and reinforce the themes of fait and destiny and the idea that 'everything works out in the end' which could tie in with the fact that the audience have to work out what is happening. The non linear approach to narrative may be appealing for the audience as it is different and interesting rather than a movie with a conventional 'one story line' narrative that runs throughout and may loose the audience's attention. The parallel narratives may be appealing for the audience because it provides them with multiple stories and gives them more to think about throughout the film, it may also have an impact on the characters.

Having multiple narratives going on at once can give the characters more depth as we see them at different ages and different stages in their life we feel as though we know them more, they become more real to the audience and we feel as though we have been through their life experiences with them. I imagine that this is the effect that Danny Boyle wanted to give off as the story is supposed to be realistic and the characters are meant to be dynamic and the audience are supposed to empathise and relate to them and the parallel narratives help to do this as we get more information about the characters all at one time. It also helps to squeeze in all of the information needed to make the plot complete.