The Movie:

Salaam Bombay is a perfect antidote for audiences who were interested in the gritty story of the homeless kids in Danny Boyle's slightly overrated Slumdog Millionaire, but were annoyed by that Best Picture Oscar winner's intentionally manipulative moves that slid it directly into shameless melodrama territory on more than one occasion. Boyle's approach is understandable at points, since it was in his vision to create a Bollywood fable palatable for the Western audience. It just inevitably suffered from an atonal finished product, since Boyle was unable to shake off the griminess of his 90s work.

Salaam Bombay owes more to the glorious cinema of Satyajit Ray, whose work managed to be profoundly artful while representing Indian life in a more realistic manner. As painful as the story of the street kids who are either mistreated or ignored by the society around them can be, director Mira Nair doesn't manipulate Salaam Bombay into becoming misery porn, a convenient tearjerker. This is a film that pops and crackles with energy, as it delves into the underbelly of Bombay's (Now Mumbai) slums, and doesn't set out to mold itself into a prefabricated genre. Both the misery and the reaffirmation of life come organic to the process. As the film's co-screenwriter states in one of the extras, it's not a documentary, but it's not entirely fiction either.

Salaam Bombay has a very loose main storyline that's mainly used as a framing device in order to examine the day to day lives of homeless children hustling to make a living for themselves. The film centers on Krishna (Shafiq Syed), a poor boy who's kicked out of home after setting fire to a bike that his brother was supposed to fix. This fit of anger is a result of Krishna's brother mistreating him, but his mother takes the brother's side nevertheless, and kicks Krishna out until he can raise the 500 rupees to pay for the bike. Krishna therefore has no choice but to go to Bombay in order to make the money however he can.

During his struggles, Krishna befriends an embittered yet pure-hearted junkie who's at odds with the neighborhood pimp/drug dealer named Baba (Nana Patekar). Baba is a strict and mean tyrant in many ways, but he's not drawn to be a convenient mustache-twirling Bollywood villain. As the story moves along, we gradually find out that a lot of Baba's meanness comes from his emotional vulnerabilities, which come out when he begins to fall in love with a 16-year-old girl whose virginity is forcefully sold to the highest bidder. Krishna also has feelings for the poor girl, who sticks out as the truly tragic center of the film, and becomes obsessed with saving her as a means of finding a semblance of redemption within the ugly world he inhabits.

As we reach the unconventional third act, we expect for a more typical resolution that shows Krishna raising the money and going back to his family. But as Krishna begins to realize that the mean streets of Bombay is sucking him into a never-ending spiral of misery and strife, we as the audience also get the feeling that this story might not have a happy ending, or even an ending at all, at least not one that will give us a sense of convenient closure.

The Blu-ray:

Video:

Salaam Bombay's gorgeous cinematography stays true to the drab locations' faded and grayscale color palette. Yet there are a lot of bright colors that appear in every shot, in a way visually complimenting the film's theme that beauty and life can come out of even the most depressing places. The film's 1080p presentation captures those colors really well, and shows a nice amount of contrast. There are a noticeable amount of film scratches and dirt in pretty much every scene. It's far from a Criterion-level transfer, but I bet it's the best the film looks on any home video format.

Audio:

Salaam Bombay contains an audio track that's a pet peeve of mine: A mono mix offered in 2.0. Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled by Criterion's excellent lossless 1.0 presentations, but apart from expecting the mono mix to come out of the center channel, the audio transfer felt a bit tinny and lifeless, even though it was supposed to be a DTS-HD track. It gets the job done, and the dialogue and music is clear, just don't expect fireworks.

Extras:

Original Documentaries: Six short documentaries, five that focus on the production experiences of an individual from the cast and crew, and one that's about an organization that helps street kids in Mumbai. These are "original" in the sense that they were produced during the film's DVD release in 2003. The docs are very informative and clock in at a total of around 40 minutes. It's especially interesting to see what the actual street kids chosen to lead the film grew up to become.

Audio Commentary with Mira Nair: This is a great commentary that covers every aspect of production. A must-listen for fans of the film.

Audio Commentary by DP Sandi Siddel: This one obvious veers more towards the technical side of the production.

We also get a Trailer.

Final Thoughs:

Insightful, truthful, soulful, and emotionally engaging from the first frame to the last, Salaam Bombay is still the best film directed by Mira Nair, a cherished filmmaker with an impressive resume. This Blu-ray release isn't spectacular, but it's a treat to have this great film available in HD.

Oktay Ege Kozak is a film critic and screenwriter based in Portland, Oregon. He also writes for The Playlist, The Oregon Herald, and Beyazperde.com