Slumdog Millionaire Genre

The genre of Slumdog Millionaire looks like a romantic drama, as Slumdog contains many of the key conventions of a romantic drama film. Without the film explicitly using Propp’s character types we know they are present. Jamal is our hero, who is chasing his princess, Latika. Propp’s character types include the role of a villain which is played by Prem and Salim. The main theme of Slumdog bends the genre of the film towards the romantic drama. The theme of chasing a lost love across a big city defying all odds is common of the romantic drama.

The use of flashbacks, flash-forwards and montages helps the narrative create a difficulty for Jamal and Latika to be together. They convey desperation and innocence as he is interrogated by now his only hope is for destiny to push him that extra bit closer to Latika.

Although by every difficulty seems to increase the odds of failure. Destiny is mentioned so often that we are reassured, as the audience that, the guy must get the girl. This is always the case in the romantic drama genre.

Close-up shots of Latika enhance the importance of her to both the narrative and Jamal. Emotion between them is highlighted whenever Jamal sees her. It is demonstrated by a POV shot that will stay on Latika for a relatively long time. During the shot we have time to understand her beauty and vulnerability. The shots are voyeuristic portraying that she is a prize worth struggling for.

Slumdog also uses clues of a romantic drama unfolding by the use of iconography. The film uses visual signifiers such as many close-up shots and most obvious, a kissing scene. Without the kiss at the end of the film we would be puzzled to believe that this is a romantic drama. The narrative makes this scene importance by making it the only kiss in the film.

However the individual kiss could influence Slumdog to be of the Bollywood genre. Bollywood genre conventions include the idea of a single kiss. Other conventions of Bollywood seem to be involved in Slumdog’s narrative. Conventions such as: references to religion, dramatic changes of fortune, kidnapping, a love triangle and sacrifice. It is clear that Bollywood has had influence on the song at the end Slumdog Millionaire.

To summarise conventions from both the romantic drama and Bollywood genres are present. I believe that the romantic genre appears to have more influence due to the iconography, character types and main themes.