Shelter

If one were to describe the content of the documentary "Shelter", one might get the impression that the film is an extended news report. Indeed, the film does contain interviews and observational footage constructed in a way to inform us about a specific urban problem in the city of Bombay. However, the film is also shot in a lyrical style that contrasts with the news report quality of the content and clearly shows the director, Uma Segal, to be as talented at creating captivating art as she is at addressing social issues. The film involves the conflict between street dwellers in Bombay, and the attempts to remove them from the street despite the fact that these people have nowhere else to go. Segal clearly sympathizes with the street people, although there is an attempt to show the views of the other side as well.

The film is sandwiched between two bravura sequences that show Segal's skills as an editor. The opening sequence is a montage of shots of cloudy skies, threatening to rain down on the street dwellers. This helps us understand what these people must go through quite often. It is the final sequence however that is the most harrowing: a long montage of homes being destroyed and the street dwellers being forced to leave. The sense of chaos is perfectly rendered, not just by the use of the jerky handheld camera and the fast paced editing, but the deafening sound of the machines being used to tear down the homes.

Segal makes other aesthetic choices that moves her film beyond traditional "news style" documentary filmmaking. The use of a telephoto lens during the observational sequences is particularly striking. Segal keeps the viewer at a distance from her subjects, intentionally making the viewer feel helpless. The telephoto lens also helps suggest a lack of solidarity within the community. This lack of solidarity is expressed in other ways as well. The use of montage for instance, especially in the final sequence, creates a sense of unease. Although the shots are thematically related, it is very rare that one shot is directly followed by another that allows the viewer to spatially connect the two images. The effect is slightly disorienting, but intentionally so. Segal's interviewing style also helps the viewer understand that there is a lack of communal solidarity. Be it upper, middle or lower caste citizens being interviewed, Segal isolates them into their own area. For the upper caste citizens, the reason for this might seem obvious: Segal is suggesting these people are removed from the reality that surrounds them. However, for the street dwellers, this isolation suggests an unwilling separation from home and community, since they are being forcibly removed.