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62 of 65 found the following review helpful:
A FILM NOT SOON FORGOTTEN...Jan 04, 2003
By Lawyeraau
This is a superb film that gives the viewer a bird's-eye view into the plight of India's urban street children. It is done through the experience of young Krishna, an illiterate, country bumpkin of a boy, who is abandoned by his mother at a circus and told not to come home until he has five hundred rupees for having broken something that belonged to his brother. While Krishna is on an errand, the circus packs up and leaves town, and he is left alone to fend for himself. Krishna uses his last few rupees to travel to a city, which by luck of the draw turns out to be Bombay. Thrust into the life of the street children of Bombay, living among the pimps, hustlers, drug addicts, prostitutes, and throw away children that proliferate in India's urban settlements, a modern day jungle, Krishna struggles to survive. His resourcefulness holds him in good stead. He quickly develops some street smarts and forms attachments. He struggles to earn and save money, so that he can return home to his mother and the family whom he misses, only to be duped in the end by one in whom he had trusted. His story breaks one's heart, as he learns some hard lessons in life. This is a gritty look into the underbelly and plight of Bombay's poor street children, who call the gutters of its filthy urban streets home. It is filled with the sights and sounds of this urban nightmare. An Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this highly acclaimed film allows the viewer a peek at another culture, only to find that basic human needs and desires are universal.
31 of 33 found the following review helpful:
A FILM NOT SOON FORGOTTEN....Jan 21, 2002
By Lawyeraau
This is a superb film that gives the viewer a bird's eye view into the plight of India's urban street children. It is done through the experience of young Krishna, an illiterate, country bumpkin of a boy, who is abandoned by his mother at a circus and told not to come home until he has five hundred rupees for having broken something that belonged to his brother. While Krishna is on an errand, the circus packs up and leaves town, and he is left alone to fend for himself. Krishna uses his last few rupees to travel to a city, which by luck of the draw turns out to be Bombay. Thrust into the life of the street children of Bombay, living among the pimps, hustlers, drug addicts, prostitutes, and throw away children that proliferate in India's urban settlements, a modern day jungle, Krishna struggles to survive. His resourcefulness holds him in good stead. He quickly develops some street smarts and forms attachments. He struggles to earn and save money, so that he can return home to his mother and the family whom he misses, only to be duped in the end by one whom he had trusted. His story breaks one's heart, as he learns some hard lessons in life. This is a gritty look into the underbelly and plight of Bombay's poor street children, who call the gutters of its filthy urban streets home. It is filled with the sights and sounds of this urban nightmare. An Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this highly acclaimed film allows the viewer a peek at another culture, only to find that basic human needs and desires are universal.
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
A rose in the gutterFeb 15, 2005
By Brian Hulett
"okierazorbacker2"
Wow, what a tremendous story of innocence lost, of the anonymity of the powerless poor in the big city, and of the global theme of vices that trap such lost souls and suck them dry. This is a monumental film that touched me on so many levels that I can't put it all into words.
Almost the entire film takes place on the streets of Bombay, far from the "Bollywood" silliness of musical melodrama that we in the US usually associate with Indian cinema. These are runaways, prostitutes, junkies, and thieves, but director Mira Nair refuses to treat any of them as props or cliches, showing them as nothing less than fully fleshed human beings. The lead character is an innocent little boy who finds himself thrust into this world, and he becomes closest to two equally innocent young girls who are also on the verge of being swallowed up by the filth around them. Their journey through these few weeks is heartbreaking and chilling, and the ending will stay with you for quite some time.
Mira Nair has gone on to direct several feature films, including Indian-American productions like "Mississippi Masala" with Denzel Washington, but this is far more realized than that one, partly because the characters are more real and partly because the story is much more perfectly and completely told. In "Salaam Bombay!" the actors are mostly street people, several of them so malnourished it hurts to look at them. The realism of the players reflects the unblinking realism of the story, ultimately condemning the situation while celebrating the humanity of the people involved.
This film should be required viewing for anyone who says they like movies.
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Lost in the CrowdsMay 10, 2005
By Randy Keehn
"Salaam Bombay" is one of those rare pictures that sets out to make a statement and then goes and does so convincingly. The audience is not lectured to but, rather, given the story of a young (pre-teen) Indian boy. He is a very likeable lad and we take an immediate interest in his well-being. He seems to do all the right things while finding himself in all the wrong circumstances. Even though he finds himself among the unsavory of society there is still a loose but visible structure for him to hang onto. Unfortunately, a key element of the story is the way he continues to become seperated from those he trusts and depends on. It reinforces the vulneralibility of our young waif. The ending to the movie is both outstanding and heartbreaking. It makes the statement of the tragedy of abandoned children in metropolitan India.
The acting in "Salaam Bombay" is very good and the juvenile actors hold up their end of the movie. Despite the apparently sour theme, the movie moves along quite well and is entertaining throughout. I watched it with my 12 year old son. Some of the language and situations were a bit "mature" but he was intrigued with the plight of a young boy his age and bothered by the outcome in a way that, I hope, enabled him to appreciate our lives here. This is a movie worth watching.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
a brilliant debut for Mira Nair......Nov 28, 2005
By D. Pawl
"Dani"
Salaam Bombay, the critically acclaimed, award-winning film debut, for director and producer, Mira Nair, lives on as a timeless ode to the poverty, hopelessness and tragedy of young street kids, and other residents of the ghettos of Bombay (now Mumbai), India. Nair clearly did her research, for this film, manages to bring out stunningly powerful acting in her young actors (particularly, the lead actor, Shafiq Sayed, as Krishna), and leaves us with haunting and cautionary imagery of the sad reality of street life.
Krishna is a young, uneducated Indian boy, from a small village, who ventures out into Bombay, via train, when he must repay 500 rupees to his family, for reasons that aren't clear to us. He ends up in the one of the poorest, most desolate sections of town, amongst the street urchins and prostitutes. What start out as a transitional living space, for him, and lifestyle (as he makes his money, selling chai), becomes all the more permanent and--ultimately--impossible. He encounters Chillum, a drugdealer he befriends, who starts out as an ally, but whose character and relationship to him changes overtime. He also meets Manju, the daughter of a prostitute, so young and, yet, already so exposed to the darker side of life.
As the film progresses, we forget that these children are acting, and this is a recreation of real-life events. It is amazing, thought-provoking and ultimately heartbreaking......This was only the beginning, for Nair, who has gone on to have a remarkable and brilliant body of work...
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