Synopsis
Salaam Bombay! (1988) is Mira Nair's crime drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. A boy named Krishna is left behind at a traveling circus by his mother, with one condition for coming home: pay back 500 rupees for the bicycle he wrecked. The circus moves on without him, and the child ends up alone on the streets of Bombay.
Krishna delivers tea, sleeps among other runaways, and is pulled into the city's underside — petty vendors, pimps, dealers, a young prostitute called Sweet Sixteen, and a heroin addict who becomes an unlikely friend. Every coin he saves edges him closer to home, but Bombay swallows money faster than he can hoard it. Nair shot in real locations and cast actual street kids in the leads, which gives the film its raw, near-documentary texture.
Nair's debut feature took the Caméra d'Or and the Audience Award at Cannes, then went on to compete for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Watch for an early appearance by Irrfan Khan, too. The film spares the viewer nothing and sweetens no endings, yet it regards its characters with warmth rather than pity. Stream Salaam Bombay! (1988) online on iFILM.
Starring
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