Directed by: Geetanjali Rao
Cast: Cyli Khare Amit Deondi Gargi Shitole Amardeep Jha
BLUF This story of Bombay Rose revolves around three illustrated overlapping narratives set in Mumbai, which creator Geetanjali Rao and her team of animators have presented in a spread of fiery and earthy tones of three intersecting stories of love and hope.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
The main story focuses on a single neighborhood of Mumbai where Kamala (Cyli Khare) falls in love with Salim (Amit Deondi), a young Muslim man from Kashmir. Kamala sells flowers in all varieties, befriending customers with her wit and charm; but at night, she is a bar dancer, not known to Salim, her grandfather, or to her younger sister Tara (Gargi Shitole). And if things were not complicated enough, a gangster Mike wants to whisk Kamala off to Dubai, blackmailing her. In another realm, Shirley D’Souza (Amardeep Jha), once a famous actor, is now a widowed English educator. She relives her golden era of fame smoking cigarettes during the morning and whiskey in the evenings, listening to classical old songs such as ‘Aaiye Meherbaan’.
IN THE ZONE
The narrative touches upon social issues such as child labor, poverty, and sexual exploitation in parts fleetingly but the interweaving of reality and dream sequences are at times quite confusing. The movie narrative stands on the four pillars of storytelling via visuals, colors, music, and sound to convey the right amount of love, passion, anger, angst, yearning, joy, or happiness in the visuals or the tone of each frame. Bombay Rose stands as an ode to an era of the past when coming to Bombay was a pilgrimage many made with the hope to make it big in this city of dreams. Even in animation, it makes you ponder in so many ways about how mutually inclusive your lives are and how you inconclusively impact the lives of people around you without knowing what you are doing.
FWAR
The characters illustrated, the stratified stories, the imagery, the colors, the interwoven storytelling is a sensory experience to be partaken by the viewer and savored. This is a personal experience. This is a journey to the world of cinema and to Bombay.
WHAT WE LOVED The imagery that the illustrations evoke may not have been recreated in a live depiction.
WHAT WE MISSED Nothing.
