Bombay seen as a dazzling tapestry

Press, 23 October 1989, Page 9

Bombay seen as a dazzling tapestry

At the cinema

By HANS PETROVIC SALAAM BOMBAY Directed by Mira Nair Screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala

“Salaam Bombay” (Academy), Mira Nair’s film about the street children of the teeming Indian city, is a living tapestry that dazzles the viewer with its richness.

Nair has dedicated the film to the homeless children of Bombay, ekeing out a day-by-day existence through their wits and menial jobs, and actually uses these waifs to play themselves in the film.

The story is seen through the eyes of Krishna (played by a handsome 11-year-old ragpicker, Shafiq Syed), who ran away from his village to earn 500 rupees in the big city to pay a family debt. Krishna sleeps at the back of the railway station with a group of other boys and earns a pittance working as a chaipau, carrying tea to the denizens of the redlight district, which is inhabited by a colourful cross-section of humanity, from which his friends soon turn out to be a mixture of prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers. Krishna develops a crush on an unwilling prostitute, “Sweet Sixteen” (Chandra Sharma), who has been brought from Nepal to learn her profession. Soon, however, as more and more characters are brought into the plot, one realises that this two-hour film is not just a simple story about one boy’s fight for survival. Krishna’s closest friend is Chillum (Raghubir Yadav), a dope pusher only a few years older than himself who teaches the country boy the tricks of the city streets. At a brothel, he is befriended by a prostitute, Rekha (Aneeta Kanwar), and her lonely daughter, Manju (Hansa Vithal). “Salaam Bombay” changes tone for a while during the second half when Krishna is locked away in the “Chiller Room,” where homeless boys languish their young lives away. When Krishna protests that he has done

nothing, a boy who has been there five years tells him, “I didn't do anything, and if I did, I’ve forgotten.”

The main objective is to get away from this Gov-, ernment shelter, but soon’ it becomes obvious that escape is the all-pervad-ing theme of the film. Some of his friends get away through death, while Krishna sees the two prostitutes go, leaving Krishna to fend for himself alone.

Sometimes, “Salaam Bombay” gets close to becoming a sentimental tearjerker, of the style much beloved in Hindi films, but Nair always manages to pull in the reins at the right time, leaving us with hard-hit-ting glimpses of poverty — a life from which there is no escape. Nair won the Camera d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988 for best first film, but it would seem that she also carefully studied Hector Babence’s “Pixote,” about a street kid in Rio de Janiero. Although also highly acclaimed at the time, “Pixote” was so unremittingly realistic, dragging the viewer through the sewers along with the children, that it left a thoroughly bad aftertaste.

“Salaam Bombay” also tells it as it is, but the film is filled with a splendid cast of characters reminiscent of Charles Dickens’s “Little Dorrit,” and the colourful vitality of Indian life leaves the viewer overwhelmed with amazement at the richness, instead of benumbed by the squalor.

Towards the end of 1988, the Academy struck it lucky to be screening two of the year’s top films at the same time: “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “Babette’s Feast.” At present, it is showing both “Wings of Desire” and “Salaam Bombay,” which I consider my two top films of 1 QRQ HANUSSEN Directed by Istvan Szabo Screenplay by Istvan

Szabo and Peter Dobai The current season of art films at 5.45 p.m. screenings at the Regent offers an amazing variety of films, both in subject and quality, ranging from

horror (George Romero’s “Monkey Shines”) to Ken Russell at his tackiest (“Salome’s Last Dance”), as well as some first-rate movies like the current “Hanussen,” by the Hungarian director Istvan Szabo.

“Hanussen” is the third of a trilogy by Szabo dealing with early twenti-eth-century politics and corruption in Central Europe. All three are based on fact and star the outstanding Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer.

“Mephisto,” which won an Academy Award for best foreign film, was about a German actor who was co-opted by the Nazis; “Colonel Redl” dealt with the treachery and homosexuality of an

Austrian officer in the 1914 era; and “Hanussen” is about an Austrian clairvoyant whose performances coincide with the rise of Nazism and lead to a tragic end. Photographed again by Lajos Koltai, “Hanussen” captures the feel of the era with muted colours in Central European settings of hotel lobbies, theatres, restaurants, cafes, clothes and faces, while the women exude an elegance we rarely see today.

"Hanussen” tries to draw a parallel between the rise of the clairvoyant and Hitler, both using elements of stagecraft, hypnosis and power over people. Hanussen starts by being able to tell

where things are hidden in theatres and ends by foretelling the burning of the Reichstag. This film is by far the most subtle and least melodramatic of the trilogy, with Brandauer, in the title role, also giving his best performance as the charismatic sedcer.

“Hanussen” has been dismissed by some critics as being “flawed” because the photography and production design smack too much of the theatre. I believe, however, the reason for the difficulty some people have in accepting "Hanussen” is because of its treatment of the paranormal in a very realistic world.