Bombay Beach

Bombay Beach is a mesmerizing 2011 documentary film which poignantly relays the story of the individuals living in one of Southern California's most peculiar and forgotten communities. Directed by the innovative filmmaker, Alma Har'el, Bombay Beach fuses her unique and highly emotive storytelling style with the stark realities of life in an ostracized society, resulting in a potent blend of visual poetry and documentary reality.

The film captures life on the edge of the Salton Sea, a one-time high luxury vacation spot in California desert that in the 1950s and 60s, saw a boom of tourists. But due to years of uncontrolled agricultural runoff and environmental negligence, the Sea became a near-dead zone, leading to a disquieting exodus and leaving in its wake a ghost town imbued with an eerie and desolate charm.

Bombay Beach, this small ghost town, bears little resemblance to cosmopolitan India's bustling metropolis which shares its name. The community consists of deserted homes, dilapidated caravans and desolate amenities. Despite its, at times, disheartening facade, the town is home to a series of staunch and resilient residents, whose stories form the heart of Har'el's captivating documentary.

The film follows three protagonists who lead distinctly different lives, but share a common home - Bombay Beach. The first of these is Benny Parrish, a hyperactive young boy medicated for a range of behavioral disorders. His struggles offer an intimate exploration of childhood in America's impoverished communities.

The second is CeeJay Thompson, an African American high school student, who moved to Bombay Beach from South Central Los Angeles with hopes of escaping the violence and building a future through football. His narrative examines the racial implications of his displacement and the challenges he faces in this abandoned society.

At last, we meet Red, the septuagenarian, chain-smoking oil field worker. His hard-nosed wisdom and tales of Bombay Beach's glory days provide delicate insight into the harsh realities of age and a relentless sense of longing for the past.

The film does not shy away from outlining the difficulties of its subjects' lives and the greater socio-economic issues at play. However, Har’el's tender storytelling approach refrains from oversimplification or exploitation. Instead of painting these lives with a broad, sorrowful brush, she chooses to delve deeper and unearth a surreal world teeming with vitality and the relentless human spirit.

Shot over a period of one year, Bombay Beach is a lyrical ballet of sorts that uses the desolate landscapes of the Salton Sea as a stage. Har’el vests the film with moments of surreal beauty, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. She weaves in choreographed dance sequences that echo the characters' hopes, dreams, and internal landscapes, which stir the narrative into an unexpected and absurdist mix of the documentary and music video genres.

In fact, music plays a crucial role in the movie's profound narrative. The score, provided by indie folk artist Zach Condon of the band Beirut, and songs from musician Bob Dylan, encapsulates the characters' emotions and the film's stirring atmosphere with an unmistakable elegiac resonance.

Bombay Beach stands out as a shining exemplar of a new wave of hybrid documentaries keen on pushing boundaries of genre conventions. It is a poignant discourse on the nature of the American Dream, tied together with threads of startling beauty and painful reality. More than anything, it succeeds in engaging viewers not just as observing outsiders but as intimate companions into the lives of Benny, CeeJay, and Red. Even amidst a backdrop of abandonment and desolation, it vibrantly explores the resilience, hope, and dreams of these eccentric, yet extraordinarily ordinary inhabitants of Bombay Beach.

Har’el’s Bombay Beach offers not a dispassionate observance of struggle from a privileged vantage point. Rather it presents a deeply touching, multi-faceted portrayal of life on the fringes of society, a fascinating, heart-wrenching, and unexpectedly radiant version of the American life that often remains unseen.