Bombay Beach

This documentary has a lot going for it. Beautiful cinematography. Morbidly interesting subject matter. Something of a story line. Curious characters. And the Salton Sea itself-I have seen this on maps since I was in the 7th and wondered what kind of people live there. But I couldn't decide if it was simply a documentary filmmaker filming real life as it occurred or if it was a scripted story, forced to tell the story the filmmaker wanted us to see. The dance and soundtrack sequences had to be almost certainly staged. Some of the conversations had to be staged. I rated this film 8 out of 10 anyway, because if it wasn't always real life, I believed I could see real life just behind a very transparent curtain.

Bombay Beach is a small, barely populated desert town in rural California. It is situated on the edge of a former dust bowl that was flooded by the Colorado river in 1905, transforming it into the Salton Sea. By the 1950s, a number of high-profile yacht clubs had appeared around its coastline and innumerable developers bought up land in the hope of building a holiday resort. Unfortunately, the project was quickly discarded and Bombay Beach became a ghost town, littered with derelict houses and dead, rotting fish, washed up on the shores of the now heavily polluted water.

Today, it is a tourist destination only for a handful of hipster photographers hoping to take vaguely poignant-looking pictures of the decaying, sun-baked town. It is with a similar romantic eye that Alma Har'el sets about exploring this battered little hamlet in her debut documentary, Bombay Beach.

The documentary opens with an old promotional film, urging investors to throw their money behind the Salton resort. But as two smiling holidaymakers walk joyfully into the California sunset, the celluloid runs off the reel and we are faced with the current state of the town. We are introduced to three of Bombay Beach's residents, each with a necessarily heartbreaking backstory. There is Red, an aged cowboy who hasn't seen his children in half a century; Cee-Jay, a black teen from the inner-city who moved to Bombay Beach to escape gang violence; and Benny, a troubled child of convicted felons who suffers from an array of behavioural disorders. Combined with Har'el's highly stylised images, these three narratives unfurl in a way that feels oddly contrived.

The residents of Bombay Beach go about their day as if the camera wasn't there, yet many scenes feel almost too candid. We see Cee-Jay's friends trading sordid stories about losing their virginities, and Red's ne'er-do-well neighbours shamelessly sponging off him. Considering that all the time Har'el is standing behind the camera, it makes one start to question the film's legitimacy as a documentary. Throughout the film there is a continual sense that Har'el's subjects are acting like themselves rather than being themselves. Even more mystifying is the inclusion of several staged dance routines and visual montages which augment the narrative. Yet while the amount of artistic license taken by Har'el is a little troubling at first, it is central to Bombay Beach's charm.

Of course, fictive elements have been employed by documentary filmmakers since the very beginning of the genre. In the 1922 silent classic, Nanook of the North, which followed the lives of an Inuit family, Robert Flaherty purposefully directed his subjects and staged many of the scenes. While this undoubtedly compromised its factual integrity, the film remains a poetic and enjoyable depiction of a fast-disappearing culture. Like Flaherty, Har'el embraces the artificial in order to forge a compelling narrative, which comes to us from reality but is unrestrained by the need for objectivity.

More than anything else, Har'el seems intent on expressing the strange beauty that she herself sees in the town, and she does so rather well. Red narrates much of the film with his homespun truisms about love, life and family and, in tandem with the desolate imagery, it is ghostly and evocative.

In many ways, there's very little substance here. At times, the stylistic gloss Har'el lays over the film can feel painfully superficial, and some of the dance routines seem to be nothing more than artsy visual non sequiturs thrown in for good measure. However, Bombay Beach remains an oddly stirring film and a veritable feast for the eyes.

Last month, when the UK Mirror blasted David Attenborough's BBC documentary, Frozen Planet, for its use of stock footage, the reaction from the public was not one of horror but nonchalance, and a slight fear that, due to this accusation, Attenborough's lush visuals and soothing voice might be taken away from them. So it seems, we enjoy documentaries for the aesthetic pleasures they provide as well as their factual content. Bombay Beach is a film that capitalises on this to incredible effect.

Should a piece of film stand on its own merits or is it okay to be informed by the intentions of the film maker? In this case, I recommend that viewers read the interview of director Alma Har'el by philconcannon which can be found on a message board.

This film is not a documentary. It is not a drama. It is, indeed, part musical because some sequences are choreographed. But director Har'el advises that she wants to transcend genres. The result is a hybrid form that must be analyzed to be understood.

The film centers on three individuals who actually exist. They live near the Salton Sea--a decaying area that is part desert wasteland and part deteriorating infrastructure. Those who live in this isolated and forgotten area might be considered detritus that has washed up on the beach.

However, a society does exist there and many of the individuals make the most of their unfortunate circumstances. One character, Red, is an elderly gentleman who says he enjoys life, but seems to spend much of his time smoking and dealing cigarettes. Cedric is a black teen who relocated from LA out of desperation, trying to escape urban violence. Benny is a young boy who deals with mental imbalances and the debilitating effects of the drugs he takes to combat them.

Some have suggested that the film is a condemnation of the American Dream. On the contrary, the film celebrates those who endure hardships and still dream. Cedric has aspirations for the NFL. Benny wants to be a fireman. Har'el uses their comments as voice overs, giving the film a philosophical tone.

The end result is a sometimes sad, sometimes hopeful portrayal of an area. A slice of life. And a frank look at a world populated by misfits and survivors. In the credits, director Har'el gives a nod to the "surreal and beautiful Bombay Beach", providing a clue to her feelings.

Very well made and innovative docu drama. Most important to all films of this genre, the subject is utterly fascinating and contains people with genuine quirkiness and character. The story and the people are captured in a unique and compelling way too which adds to its wonder. Rightly acknowledges and thanks the great Werner Herzog in the credits as his ability to look beyond characters and create drama through them has clearly influenced the feel of this film. Thoroughly enjoyable throughout. I wish it had received more coverage and will hopefully get Oscar acclaim this year if submitted. A real gem and very much worth watching.

I have reviewed a ton of films...more than anyone else so far on IMDb. So I obviously love movies...all sorts of movies. And, with nearly 20,000 reviews I am going to admit something I've almost never done...I bailed on this movie and never finished it because I simply was having a miserable time watching "Bombay Beach"...a documentary about three very different sorts of poor people living in a hellish moribund town along the banks of the dying Salton Sea in Southern California.

Now a documentary about the Salton Sea can be very interesting...and I've seen one that kept my interest. After all, an ENORMOUS lake was formed in the middle of the desert and became a paradise, of sorts, for several decades. Folks flocked here because of the beachside communities and there was a tremendous land boom in the 1950s. But over the years, the salt level of the water has continued to increase to the point that many of the fish species have been wiped out and the once terrific place is now a smelly dead zone. This is very fascinating. But the makers of Bombay Beach have chosen instead NOT to tell the story of this area but instead focus on three trashy sorts of guys....and therein lies the problems. Listening to a crazy old guy rant and rave or a high school student talking about scoring with girls or an emotionally disturbed little boy from a bizarre family simply isn't entertaining...it's just sad. It's also about as enjoyable as chewing on an electric cord that IS plugged in...that's what I felt about this meandering and often annoying film. To make it worse, sometimes the cinematography was fuzzy...making it annoying AND tough on the eyes. No thank you.