When beginning a month long retrospective of Mira Nair, there probably isn't a better intro than the opening of Salaam Bombay!: A brightly colored circus, a stonefaced child left behind, a train ride to the bright streets of Bombay. Nair's films are eye-catching spectacles that find the beautiful in the mundane. But her playfulness is sharply contrasted with the real issues her films address. Salaam Bombay! is an observation of the secret world of the often-overlooked children living on Bombay's streets that balances bright visuals with social realism in order to paint a complex picture of Indian homeless youth.
Mira Nair's first feature follows a closeknit group of kids living between the cracks of Bombay city. The stonefaced boy at the beginning is Krishna (Shafiq Syed), who goes for an errand for the circus owner and comes back to discover that his temporary home with the circus has left without him. Krishna makes his way to Bombay, which is as colorful as the circus, but also more dangerous. Krishna eventually gets a job selling tea, and falls in with a group of urchins. He befriends a drunk, a prostitute, and her daughter. He's illiterate but street smart and is trying to save the unimaginable sum of 500 rupees to bring back to his mother - though he's not sure where he is. But don't mistake Krishna's story for a Dickensian tale of woe. Salaam Bombay! is not melodrama. Nair approaches her subject with empathy and curiosity, and gets the children to open up to her as well.
The result is a movie that feels like equal parts documentary and fantasy, thanks to stunning cinematography and empathetic character studies. Nair and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala interviewed dozens of homeless children in order to tell their story, and cast a small handful of them as well. There's a constant debate surrounding child actors about how much of the filmed performance is the work of the director, and how much is the child. In the case of Salaam Bombay!, Nair has the wisdom to forfeit control over anything but the story and instead allow the children to act as themselves. The result is powerful. Syed and the other children laugh, they play, they sing during movies. They also cheat, steal, fight, and bury their friends when no one else will. Krishna and his friends create a community more supportive than the institutions created by adults to "handle" them. These are children in an adult world that views them as a problem.
Mira Nair's film doesn't propose a solution for the "street urchin problem." On the contrary, Nair suggests that contemporary solutions are actually doing more harm than good. The city viewed by Nair's camera is that observed by the children: brightly colored, full of promise, but seen from the outside. By contrast, when the kids are captured and thrown in an institution, the color drains from the film. Krishna is still overlooked and undervalued, but now he's been robbed of community and support.
It's possible that in her effort to stick pins in the status quo, Nair ends up romanticizing her subject. But she's showing the endless adaptability of children. In choosing the least-bad of a series of bad options, the kids see opportunities and excitement even as they mourn what they lose. This complicated first film garnered Nair a 1988 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and established her as a world director. Her next film would push her profile and point of view even further.
11/12 Monsoon Wedding (2001) - Nair's second BAFTA award nomination came for this comedy about Indian arranged marriage. (Amazon Instant Video)
11/19 Vanity Fair (2004) - At first glance, an English satire of mannered society doesn't seem like Mira Nair's wheelhouse. Thena again, nothing about this visually sumptuous melodrama is what it seems. (Amazon Instant Video)
11/26 Amelia (2009) - Thanksgiving seems like a perfect time to talk about this absolute turkey, starring Hilary Swank as the American aviatrix Amelia Earhart. (Amazon Instant Video)