Slumdog Millionaire: narrative

Plot and story: the quiz show as a frame, each question opening a flashback, and how the finished film tells a chronological story out of order.
Structure: cause and effect, from the presenter Prem, whose envy leads him to have Jamal arrested (the inciting incident), through plot points in Jamal's life, to the final question and reunion as the climax.
Techniques: withholding whether Jamal cheated and what happened to Latika and Salim, flash-forwards, and ellipsis across the years.
Characters and their functions (Jamal, Latika, Salim, the presenter and the police inspector), themes of destiny, poverty and love, and how the narrative engages us.
A worked answer to a practice Section A question on narrative, part by part: the short parts that ask you to identify and explain, and the 15-mark final part on a key sequence.
How to answer each part: the marks, and what the short identify and explain parts need as well as the extended answer, since naming a technique instead of a specific example from the film loses marks there. Practice questions to try, each headed 'Practice question' with its marks.
Quote only short lines of dialogue you're sure of, a few words at a time, and base every point on what happens in the finished film.

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