Bombay Beach

Bombay Beach (trailer) from ro*co films on Vimeo.
I like to see or hear about shocking things. Sounds terrible, right? But I do. Murder, genetic abnormalities that are inexplicable, living conditions...all fascinating to me. I look forward to the culture shock. I love and have always loved to see how other people live. So, as it is oft the case in life, when i stumbled, completely at random (thanks Wikipedia) on Bombay Beach, I knew I had to see it. I had never heard of the Salton Sea before that. I didn't know that there had once been, in the middle of the California desert, a man-made sea and a surrounding resort town called Bombay Beach, that people dubbed "the new Palm Spring." I didn't know (although, i am not suprised at all) that the pionneers of the project let it go adrift. That what was once supposed to be the mecca for entertainment and fun in the sun, is not more than a skeleton today. A small community of, for lack of a better word- misfits still live in these sandy and empty streets. In their dirty mobile homes, there is an abundance of alcohol and ciggies. This seem to be a mere reduction, a cliché. But you don't feel like this after watching Alma Ha'rel's stunning docu-fiction. Her movie is poetic, strikingly beautiful and very touching. These people have been forgotten. Or have, by choice, decided on a life on the margins of society, in a God-forsaken place where dilapidated houses and boat ruins are the children's playground and where the so-called "sea" is slowly becoming no more than a poisonous saline pound. This movie is hard to watch at times but it is visual poetry. I urge you to give it a try. If only for the culture shock. If only to realize that there are still people in America today living like this. If only, to be grateful of your own circumstances. xox