Bombay Rose

On Monday, November 11th, the Hawaii International Film Festival screened Bombay Rose an animated film dedicated to the Spotlight on India category at HIFF 2019. The film takes place in the seaside city of Bombay, where a young Hindu woman named Kamala who works selling flower garlands during the day, and as a dancer at an illegal nightclub in the evening. Growing up, she had to face a tough reality and hopes to protect her little sister Tara, from this life as they live in their grandfather’s failing clock shop. Her life changes when she meets a young Muslim man named Salim who sells his stolen goods to passing cars directly across the street from Kamala. They visit and talk to each other everyday, and begin to form an unbreakable bond, both understanding the struggles of their everyday life. Their relationship is tested as they find out shocking discoveries about each other, the pressures from within their religions, and their social status within the city. A truly heart-warming and uplifting story about finding love and fighting against all odds, Bombay Rose is not a film to miss.

Bombay Rose was directed by Gitanjali Rao, the film first debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year. Each frame was hand painted by over 60 artists in a 2D animation format. The animated film begins with the cityscape of Bombay being painted onto the screen almost by an invisible paintbrush, while the audio provides sounds of the vibrant streetlife leaving the audience to feel like they are roaming the streets of Bombay with our characters. The sounds of the city life perfectly matches the intensity and tone of each scene, like when Kamala and Salim are running from the police, or when the two young lovers are daydreaming about each other. One of the most interesting visual aspects of the film was how the reality and dream world were distinguished from one another, when a character began to daydream an invisible paint brush smoothly painted on ornate details to the frame and landscape showing how they desire to live. The beautiful oil painted frames are accompanied with melodious hymns and instruments created a calming mood too. 

Photo courtesy of imdb

As a person who enjoys animation films, I found this film to bring a new and unique story plot and design to this year’s film festival. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this artistic and creatively produced film, and hope you all can make it to its next showing!