Pi@LFF: Bombay Rose
Pi@LFF is a series of reviews made by the Pi Culture team attending the 2019 BFI London Film Festival. In this article, Laura Toms reviews Gitanjali Rao’s debut animation.
A true delight for the eyes, Bombay Rose’s beautifully crafted animation transports viewers into the heart and bustle of the Mumbai streets. Gitanjali Rao’s debut as animator, writer, director and editor is an affectionate nod to Bollywood - though this paradise is not all it seems. Behind every corner and under every car the protagonists are threatened by the realities and downfalls of the urban environment.
Rao uses numerous storylines, all intertwined by their connection with a single rose, to draw out these anxieties. The most prominent is the love between the flower girl Kamala (Cylil Khare) and flower boy Salim (Amit Deondi). Through classic and extravagant Bollywood cuts we see them fall in love as they watch each other prepare garlands from across a busy street. Like all great love stories, it's never easy. As Kamala is Hindu and Salim is Muslim, they face discrimination and their blossoming love is almost cut short when Salim discovers that Kamala dances in an illegal club. Whilst initially put off, he discovers that all of her wages goes to pay for her younger sister, Tara’s (Gargi Shitole) education.
The main subplot is between Tara and her English teacher, Shirley (Amardeep Jha). The contrast between the young Tara and elder Shirley highlights Shirley’s mourning over the past. As a widowed former Bollywood star, it is clear she has not yet come to terms with the dwindling time she has left.
To convey the busyness of Mumbai, it seems Rao wanted to include the whole population within her feature. Other characters include the deaf street orphan helped by Tara, Kamala’s watchmaker grandfather (Virendra Saxena) and Kamala’s pimp, Mike (Makrand Deshpande) to name but a few. Whilst the mass of subplots may detract from the intimacy we feel towards each character, we are given instead a truthful account of how Mumbai functions. It beats with life, each part working and relying upon another. It is not a city made up of individuals. It works together like a body, or more appropriately, a flower.
The most important character, however, is the animation itself. Each scene is hand painted by Rao to wondrous effect. From the opening scene we watch the city grow from sketch to full colourful bloom, see the city melt into a folk-influenced splendour that transforms Kamala into an ancient Mughal Princess and places the viewer into the Rose itself as we travel across the city from its perspective. Bombay Rose is an ode to the majesty of animation as an art form, something that can be so easily forgotten when one is constantly ambushed by the work of Disney and Pixar.
The paradise of Bomaby Rose is purposefully punctuated by the harsh realities of religious discrimination and an oppressive state that arrests rather than supports individuals. By using the cinematic tropes and structuring of Bollywood films, Rao leaves us pondering whether the life depicted and devoured so readily by watchers of Bollywood is a fallacy. Can cinema really elevate those out of their reality, and if so, is this a good thing?