Where does appreciation end and exploitation begin? Gorgeous and disquieting, the documentary Bombay Beach wobbles between the two like a beginner gymnast on her first attempt on the balance beam. On one side, it’s a poetic, freeform examination of the lives of a few of the residents of the area of the title, located by the Salton Sea in the Southern California desert. On the other, it’s an uncomfortable fetishization of the community’s outsider status, dictated by poverty, by location and by an inability or unwillingness to exist elsewhere. Israeli-born director Alma Har’el, who comes from a background of music videos and commercials, doesn’t just bask in this abundance of scenic, decaying Americana, she shapes it into choreographed dance interludes with the subjects, who twirl outside their mobile homes and don carnival masks to cavort in an outdoor gazebo. It’s a bit of whimsy as pretty and problematic as the film as a whole.
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REVIEW: Gorgeous Doc Bombay Beach Seems Earnest But Raises Questions of Exploitation
