Alma Ha’rel’s mesmerising documentary unfolds like a dream. Winner of Best Documentary Film at Tribeca Film Festival and captivating audiences wherever it plays, BOMBAY BEACH is a stunning piece of imaginative film-making. Rooted in fact and history but filmed like the strangest fiction, it infuses bursts of choreographed dancing into the natural interactions of the film’s subjects, capturing a rare essence through windows of movement and physical expression.
Now a run-down dystopia, Bombay Beach was formed when the banks of the Colorado River burst and flooded the desert, creating Salton Sea. Back in the 50s the rich and famous flocked to the booming holiday spot, but as the tourists moved on and Salton Sea turned stagnant, the landscape deteriorated into a rusty ghost of itself. The current inhabitants live on the poverty line and have colorful histories. These lives and visions of a dried up American dream are rhythmically weaved together with Bob Dylan tracks and an original score from Beirut’s Zach Condon, which harbours a distant spark of hope that lost treasure might be regained.
