Salaam Bombay!
Director: Mira Nair
Year Released: 1988
Rating: 1.5
Nair's directorial debut is more like Babenco's Pixote than Ray's films - it's more focused on watching children get punished than pushing to say anything multi-dimensional about the culture itself or offer solutions or guidance. According to Nair, children of India (Bombay in particular) are homeless, whipped, abused and so unimaginative (or so grounded in reality) that they must resort to drugs to find fantasy and escape; adults, meanwhile, are all (and I mean all) abusive, mean-spirited and ethically damaged. The children steal, try to run away, are put in prison, are beaten up in prison, try to escape, and so forth, while adults buy virgins, deal drugs and ignore their own kids, forcing them to sleep outside. Nair engages in sensationalism to generate sympathy, and can only think of closing her film on an extended shot of the protagonist crying. What is there to do? Call the Red Cross.
