Salaam Bombay! (Widescreen Special Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Foreign films
Review: This is not so much a movie as it is an educational lesson. This is about real people living their lives on the streets of Bombay. It is very difficult to differentiate between the act and the real thing because so many "ordinary" people were used in the making of this movie. But the people themselves are anything but ordinary. They need to be extraordinary in order to survive their poverty-stricken conditions. This movie is about the survival of life for these people. Every day brings new challenges, primarily seen through the eyes of the boy, Krishna. You want to help him but all you can do is watch. And sometimes, cry. You won't view your life the same way again after seeing this profound movie. The scenes will stay with you. I was so affected by the lead character that years later when I had a child I named him Krishna (my son is part Indian), after him. For people who like special features with their DVDs the features on this one are as long as the movie, including a lengthy discussion with the director, Mira Nair.

Rating:
Summary: The best film of all time!
Review: I couldn't believe my eyes when I happened to be browsing through the foreign film DVD's and pulled out Salaam Bombay by surprise. I love this film! This is my favorite film in the whole world and in my opinion one of the best films ever made. After searching for such a long time for this film in which I finally found one used copy on VHS, having this film on DVD is a reale prize. Not only do you get the film itself and the quality of the picture is fantastic, but you get so many special features. A major highlight of this DVD is that you get special features with several of the actors that acted in the film. The features present recent interviews with Shafiq Syed the lead character in the film as well as with the other actors. These feastures are nice because you see the child actors in what they look like now and what became of their lives. You also get footage on a brief history on how the actors were recruited off the streets and the making of the film. The features also present footage with director Mira Nair and other production crew of the film. This is a really great film and the way Mira Nair shot and directed the film was very clever. This film has a documentary type quality to it and filming was done entirely on the streets of Mumbai(Bombay)so you get an upclose reality of what some of the streets of Bombay look like and the lives of the poor and the street children. This is an excellent film and I am grateful to have this DVD, may favorite film of all time!

Rating:
Summary: The best film of all time!
Review: I couldn't believe my eyes when I happened to be browsing through the foreign film DVD's and pulled out Salaam Bombay by surprise. I love this film! This is my favorite film in the whole world and in my opinion one of the best films ever made. After searching for such a long time for this film in which I finally found one used copy on VHS, having this film on DVD is a reale prize. Not only do you get the film itself and the quality of the picture is fantastic, but you get so many special features. A major highlight of this DVD is that you get special features with several of the actors that acted in the film. The features present recent interviews with Shafiq Syed the lead character in the film as well as with the other actors. These feastures are nice because you see the child actors in what they look like now and what became of their lives. You also get footage on a brief history on how the actors were recruited off the streets and the making of the film. The features also present footage with director Mira Nair and other production crew of the film. This is a really great film and the way Mira Nair shot and directed the film was very clever. This film has a documentary type quality to it and filming was done entirely on the streets of Mumbai(Bombay)so you get an upclose reality of what some of the streets of Bombay look like and the lives of the poor and the street children. This is an excellent film and I am grateful to have this DVD, may favorite film of all time!

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and haunting film!
Review: Mira Nair won the expected recognizement on Cannes with this painful and real movie filmed on the heart of the Bombay streets with actors not necessary professionales , Mair literally drowned in the deepest holes of a city who sees how the things are and however are inmovilized may be by the costume itself .
The awful experiences of the orphaness with the drugs dealers, street hustlers and merciless peddlers. From the initial sequences came to my mind the famous brazilian picture Pixote . This movie revitalizes in itself the initial spirit and commitment who threw to a group of film makers in that french artistic movement named The New Wave from the late fifties . And specially , Truffaut The 400 blows , since this works goes far beyond.


Rating:
Summary: A FILM NOT SOON FORGOTTEN...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Still the best!
Review: This was my introduction to Mira Nair. I assumed it was her first full-length feature. She takes you into the streets of Bombay through the eyes of homeless children. It is kind of an "Oliver Twist" in India, but Nair provides a gritty perspective that has been lacking in her films since her international debut. The camera work is fantastic. You really get the sense of the teaming masses of people and the vulnerbility of these children. The Fagan-like overlord of this brood feels real, making it seem like Mira did her research.

Rating:
Summary: Still the best!
Review: This was my introduction to Mira Nair. I assumed it was her first full-length feature. She takes you into the streets of Bombay through the eyes of homeless children. It is kind of an "Oliver Twist" in India, but Nair provides a gritty perspective that has been lacking in her films since her international debut. The camera work is fantastic. You really get the sense of the teaming masses of people and the vulnerbility of these children. The Fagan-like overlord of this brood feels real, making it seem like Mira did her research.

Rating:
Summary: A rose in the gutter
Review: 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.