Bombay Rose is an Indian animated film from Gitanjali Rao, marking her feature directorial debut. It follows Salim (Amit Deondi) and Kamala (Cyli Khare), two young people who are trying to make their way in the relentlessly bustling city of Bombay, during an unspecified time in the not-too-distant past. Kamala dances at an illegal nightclub and Salim sells flowers that he stole from a local cemetery, having left Kashmir after being orphaned by the military unrest in the region. The two come across one another, and share some longing glances. However, their less than ideal situations aren’t the only things keeping them apart, it’s also due to him being a Muslim while she’s a Hindu.
Salim and Kamala aren’t the only ones the film places its attention on. It explores the lives of various other colorful characters that are tangentially related to our main couple. There’s Shirley D’Souza (Amardeep Jha), the English tutor for Kamala’s younger sister, Tara (Gargi Shitole), who still yearns for the days when she was a young Bollywood star. We also get moments with Kamala’s grandfather and local watchmaker (voiced by Virendra Saxena), a gangster named Mike (Makarand Deshpande), who has his eyes set on Kamala, and the occasional interlude of a Bollywood film within the film starring Raja Khan (Anurag Kashyap).
Less forgiving folks might consider the film to be unfocused, as it leisurely goes from character to character, and not necessarily building on the kind of momentum you would expect for the kind of forbidden love story that anchors all the events in the film. It’s an understandable criticism, but the film clearly isn’t going for traditional storytelling. It is much more ethereal and driven by feeling and nostalgia and cultivating an atmosphere that practically serves as a love letter for the city this is set in.
That sense of feeling and nostalgia is captured beautifully by the animation. It was reportedly painted frame-by-frame by over a hundred animators over the course of nearly two years. Every frame is literally a painting, tackling a stunning art style that might not be the most fluid and detailed like the latest Pixar, but in utilizing an aesthetic that calls back to several forms of pre-20th century Indian folk art, it sets itself up with a very distinctive visual palette that informs the themes and ideas and characters in ways that wouldn’t have been as effective had this looked like any other western inspired animation.
Overall, while certain elements might initially seem alienating or inexplicable, especially if you’re not super aware of some of the cultural nuances, Bombay Rose is an evocative and inspired piece of filmmaking. It is a poetic and vibrant ode to a city, to the people in that city, and the things those people have left behind in order to try achieve their dreams in that city. Sure, it’s not the most intricately plotted film out there, but its ability to capture the essence of these characters without constantly throwing exposition or other details via traditional narrative means is impressive. On top of that, the animation is striking and often breathtaking, capturing both the hopes of these characters as well as the harsh realities, and the artistry involved makes the experience all the more rewarding.
Bombay Rose is now out on Netflix.