Bombay (1995)

Ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam has attempted a film on inter-religion marriage and the aftermath of communal riots and came out with flying colors. Ratnam has struck all the right chords here as nothing in this film looks out of place and almost all characters have given their very best. Arvind Swamy shows that he has what it takes to be the numero uno in the industry after his superb performance in Roja while Manisha Koirala is indeed very good here as a Muslim girl torn between her family and her Hindu lover and then a distraught mother of lost twins. None of the actresses portray vulnerability on screen like she does. Nassar is good as the hero's father while Kitty pitches in another believable performance as the heroine's Muslim father. Music is excellent and I understand why after Bombay, Ratnam chooses A.R. Rahman as the music composer for most of his films. Cinematography is breath-taking and the scenarios of the rural India and the suburban Mumbai have been captured genuinely and beautifully. Bombay easily goes down in cinematic history as a classic and it does show some disturbing pictures of the aftermath of the Hindu-Muslim riot like charred, deformed bodies of little children after being burnt down which is truly heart wrenching and might melt even the stone-hearted.Just brilliant! Give it a shot.

it makes me sad to see that so many people were so easily impressed by this film. this film is a totally wasted opportunity, the makers had a chance to say something, but completely blew it, yet still managed to fool many people into thinking it actually had a message....the first TWO THIRDS of the film is basically romeo & juliet - a formula that has been DONE TO DEATH in Indian films since time immemorial. the same old, tired, clichéd 'Muslim boy loves hindu girl and their family won't accept it' storyline, which basically writes itself and in this case, allowed the writers to write perhaps a page of storyline that lasted about an hour and a half of screen time... we go through all the clichés, the argument between fathers, the lovers eloping, the children being born, the silly syrupy fun and games with the kids, the parents returning and everyone forgiving each other.... i've seen this exact same film HUNDREDS of times before....finally, after what seems like an eternity of stupid, cookie-cutter bollywood formula, a weak storyline emerges about the hindu-Muslim riots in bombay in the early 90s... it makes a few points, but doesn't do nearly enough to address the reasons behind it or make statements about the stupidity of religion and how it poisons everything... it would have been great to see the grandparents survive and tell each other that it was attitudes like theirs that led to the riots and deaths of so many innocents, but no, instead, the kids had to get lost and we had to worry about them instead....this film cheats the audience in so many ways that it's CRIMINAL. instead of commentary about religion, we get an overdone love story. instead of addressing the violence of religious people, we get two lost children. instead of addressing the issues in mixed-religion families, we get songs about having a baby girl.... with a precious few exceptions, this film is a totally wasted opportunity, avoid it!for a MUCH BETTER look at these riots, a much better story and for an actual discussion of the issues involved, see mahesh bhatt's superb 'zakhm' (1998), it's everything this movie should have been, and a lot more!

When you mention the words 'Indian cinema' to most people, (and disturbingly, a large proportion of film fans) often the first reaction will be that of a smirk intrinsically linked with a conjuring thought of the 'Bollywood' industry.Most people do not realise that Indian cinema as an industry is the second largest grossing cinema industry in the world, second only to the American giant that is Hollywood. Ever since the early days of the multiplex, Indian cinema has been dominating the cinematic machine, early films often dealt with social and economic strikes (mostly the 50's and before) with the Indian cinema moving more towards the romantic feature which most people associate in the mid 60's. As the decades passed by, the Indian film industry moved, as a whole, through several topics and thought provoking genres (of course a LOT of crap was released as well; this is the typical all singing all dancing 5 hour epic which most people associate Indian cinema with) until in the 90's, film makers finally started focusing on terrorism as a genre, and in particular the strife and violence engaged between Hindus and Muslims within the Tamil speaking area of India.Bombay begins as your typical Indian romance; the protagonist male and female fall in love yet are separated by different religions and families. After a moving Eden like opening song number, the two work hard to stay together through their families approval, eventually moving away form their small villages and into the city of Bombay.After an interval, the film takes a much darker tone, focusing primarily on the Bombay bombings and showing how the couple (now with children) are caught up within the racial attacks. Strikingly disturbing and realistic (one scene involves radicals pouring gasoline over the two crying children as they refuse to speak which religion they belong to) the film touches on dangerous soil as it shows the riots with no remorse or sugar coating. The lead actor delivers a compelling performance and in the end delivers an incredible speech in the middle of the riots, putting himself between the warring factions screaming 'I am neither Hindu or Muslim; I am Indian, we are all Indians!' A must watch for someone interested in good Indian cinema.

This movie is often compared to Spielberg's "Schindler's List", as the one and only movie which actually works in this context and how Spielberg could have made it to express his strong pathetic and political emotions. What a shame that "Bombay" haven't got such a big audience.The true life epos tells us the story of the Muslim-Hindu conflict 1995 in Bombay from the viewpoint of a young Muslim-Hindu couple doomed to leave their home town and families. This movie was made in the south, in Madras, shortly after the riots, and was immediately synchronized in Bombay to Hindi for the big audience. During the next three hours (the typical hindi movie length) everything works out fine, until the last thirty minutes where the Bombay riots suddenly break up everything. Mani Ratnam is the one and only director how dares to bring a song (every Hindi movie is a musical) during the very realistic war scenes, where such a scene actually works. Scenes where you are immediately reminded to how you would have shaken your head or laughed if this was just "Schindler's List". Imagine the jews singing in the last 30 minutes. Or the Trier train dance scene (for which you have to see "Dil Se") cut to the end. Not so here. They sing about the cruelty of war. Stop fighting. Crying, laughing, singing, dying, very close together. Where Trier sinks into unbelievable and childish anti-dead sentence pathos, Ratnam is still with the people, full of positive power. Incredible. A must see from one of the most important directors world-wide.