Rent Bombay Beach (2011)
3.4 of 5 from 67 ratings
1h 20min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
The rusting relic of a failed 1950s development scheme, the Salton Sea is a barren California landscape often seen as a symbol of the failed American Dream. Rrst-time director Alma Har'el visits this poetically fruitful terrain and finds there a motley cast, including a bipolar seven-year-old, a lovelorn high school football star, and an octogenarian poet-prophet. Together they make up a triptych of manhood in its decisive moments, populating the Salton Sea's land of thwarted opportunity. True to her roots as a photographer, video artist, and music video director, Alma Har'el crafts an adamantly atypical and artistically innovative film. Bombay Beach is a dreamlike poem that sets these personal stories to a stylized melding of observational documentary and choreographed dance, to music specially composed for the film by Zach Condon of the band Beirut, and songs by Bob Dylan. - Directors:
- Alma Har'el
- Producers:
- Alma Har', el, Boaz Yakin
- Studio:
- Dogwoof Digital
- Genres:
- Documentary, Music & Musicals
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Reviews (3) of Bombay Beach
A blast from the past - Bombay Beach review by AG
I remembered this place when I lived in California in the sixties, also looking for the American dream. Even though there were plenty of empty lots it had hope for the future and with my visiting parents we danced the night away at the local hotel.
But all that’s gone except for the shattered lives of some of the residents and others that forced themselves into the other world and a future. I think that this film captured all this including the depressive quality that surrounds failour , not something that most people particularly American find easy .
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Not too good - Bombay Beach review by BE
Not sure what I expected from this but found it quite tedious. There were some subtitles periodically displayed. It would have been helpful to have had full facility of this due to the slurred diction of many of the participants. Although it was a documentary, some of the scenes appeared to be contrived. Not many Dylan songs, so disappointment there as well.
0 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Rewarding - Bombay Beach review by AER
Rewarding semi-documentary about the residents of Bombay Beach and other settlements along the forgotten Salton Sea in California. Enlivened with dance sequences and some lightly dramatised sequences, this voyeuristic documentary shadows some interesting, troubled characters. It's like the opposite of the American dream. An insight into a hidden America we're not often allowed to see.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.