Representation of Youth - Slumdog Millionaire

Representation of Youth

Danny Boyle chose to portray Jamal and Salim’s metamorphosis from child to teenager in a unique shot where they roll down a hill as children and rise as teenagers. This shot is a close up on their faces and cut in with other shots of them while they are falling. By doing this, Danny Boyle has made a statement on growing up and how the change from youth to teenager can be a brutal change – especially for our characters in the film. The clouds of dust that shroud them can be seen as a visual metaphor for the inability to predict what this change will bring for their lives and the fact that the ageing occurs in just thirty seconds could imply how fast childhood leaves you and soon becomes a memory. For our characters, this is very much the case as they were denied their childhood due to several traumatic experiences they were dealt.

Also, when they reach the teenage threshold, some more serious undertones are brought into the film to reflect how this age brings some of the more serious events that will follow them for the rest of their lives.  Recurring shots of Latika’s silhouette as a child are used to portray Jamal’s desire to reunite with her to the audience. The coming of age moment for the characters occurred in the moment Salim shoots Maman. In this scene we can tell that Salim has changed irreversibly and although he has always been more troublesome than Jamal, he has now become a killer and his childhood is well and truly lost before him. For Jamal and Latika, this represents another departure and barrier for their romantic relationship as Salim forces Jamal to leave them at gunpoint. This is more poignant as it is the last scene where we see the characters as teenagers so to the audience it is the literal end of their adolescent years.