Bombay Beach

Alma Har'el

The failure of the American Dream is pre-eminently palpable on the cheerless plains surrounding the Salton Sea in California. This inland sea in the midst of California’s Colorado Desert was once home to a sophisticated holiday resort; now all that remains around this puddle filled with dead fish is a loose-knit community of social outcasts. Bombay Beach is a spectacular, hypnotic three-piece documentary with music by Beirut and Bob Dylan, and dancing protagonists.

Filmmaker Alma Har’el presents her unique portrait of three local residents: a bipolar teenager with a lively imagination, a black football player fleeing the violence on the streets of Los Angeles, and a retired oil worker living off whisky, cigarettes and joie de vivre. Are they a product of the world they live in, or is their world a construction of their own imagination? High-spirited and gorgeously constructed narrative about the life of a small community in a surreal, poetic and haunting landscape. 

Credits

Director
Alma Har'el
Producer
Boaz Yakin, Alma Har'el
Year
2011
Country of production
United States
Type
Documentary
Duration
80 minutes
Spoken language
English
Production company
Boaz Yakin/Alma Har’el
World Sales
Ro*co Films International