TORONTO - Danny Boyle's acclaimed new film "Slumdog Millionaire" paints an intoxicating picture of the chaotic, squalid streets of Mumbai, hitting theatres just as the Indian city reels from terrorist attacks that have killed more than 100 people.
The movie was a smash at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award and the cast repeatedly spoke of the key role played by Mumbai.
"This film is a tribute to Bombay (now Mumbai), one of the most important players in our film," actress Freida Pinto said as she accepted the prize in September.
"Through this film, I think we get a real sense of the sights, the sounds and the sensations of this ever-buzzing city."
"Slumdog Millionaire" tells the story of Jamal (British actor Dev Patel), an 18-year-old "slumdog" who is poised to win a king's ransom on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
His ascent on the program captivates viewers across the country, but police suspect the lanky teen is cheating. As they interrogate Jamal, the film flashes back to the "life lessons" learned during his rough-and-tumble childhood that provided him with the game show answers.
The plot turns on an anti-Muslim riot when young Jamal's mother is killed and he and his brother are orphaned.
Critics have raved about the way Boyle - who is British - has so vividly captured the rhythms of Mumbai in the film.
"Slumdog" producer Christian Colson has surmised that the director is able to see the city with an outsider's perspective in the same way British director Sam Mendes characterized American ennui in "American Beauty."
The director has said his only previous knowledge of the city came by way of stories from his father.
"I'd never been there," the director said during a news conference at the Toronto festival.
"My dad was in the army in Bombay. He served there with tens of thousands of men waiting to invade Japan and he used to go on and on and on about it, and that all stuck in my mind and obviously made an enormous impression on me."
In addition to being India's financial capital, Mumbai is also the country's entertainment hub, home to the massively popular Bollywood film industry.
In some ways, "Slumdog" resembles a Bollywood production (it even features homegrown star Anil Kapoor). Unlike those films, however, it was not shot in a studio, but on the teeming streets of Mumbai -- including the historic Chhatrapati railway station, one of the sites of Wednesday's attacks.
Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who based the film on the novel "Q and A" by Vikas Swarup, says he visited the most impoverished areas of city to find inspiration for his script.
"I went round the Mumbai slums, went round talking to people, found out what seemed to be the stories that everyone was interested in," he said at the festival.
"(There was) a lot of gangster stuff in the newspapers, lots of trials coming up - all that seemed to be very interesting and very much a part of the culture. And I just absorbed as much as I could."
In bringing the script to screen, Boyle created a dizzying portrait of the city -- its riches and its slums.
A New York Times review said "Slumdog" shows Mumbai as a place where "lost children and dogs sift through trash so fetid you swear you can smell the discarded mango as well as its peel."
And yet, noted Christy Lemire of The Associated Press, "the cinematography from Anthony Dod Mantle ... gives even the most depressing images an unexpected beauty."
Boyle has spoken effusively about his time in Mumbai, adding he'd be keen to return.
"The potential for a thriller there is just phenomenal. You have this extraordinary wealth and poverty, this extraordinary opportunity, this gap. You have basically a corrupt police - the corruption is endemic," he said.
"You've got ingredients for a thriller. Plus the fact you've got this incredibly glamorous industry, Bollywood, which is right at the centre of it, with an enormous captive audience. ... I'd love to make another movie there."
"Slumdog Millionaire" has been released in Toronto and Vancouver and goes wider in the coming weeks.
