Bombay Beach

"Rather than bringing out the symbolic inner lives of the characters, these sequences seem like the intrusion of an aggressive authorial personality on a film whose subject demands that the filmmaker simply sit back and observe." - Andrew Schenker

Sort of a "Gummo lite", where the filmmakers' well-meaning empathy ends up feeling slightly condescending at times, and some of the stabs at feel-good poetic transcendence fall completely flat (such as the godawful final scene). Still for the most part quite good, nicely filmed in a distinctly post-Malick/music video montage sort of way even though sometimes the directorial hand feels so forceful that the film's "documentary" credentials feel slightly questionable. Also minus points for Beirut.

had almost nothing to do with Bombay beach, and just a few random white-trash Americans. this documentary could have been in any random city in America.

I was initially intrigued by the film's premise and the prospect of immersing myself into the complex lives of the desert town's residents. Unfortunately, Har'el's overt reliance on manipulative devices not only fails to elicit any kind of empathy for its motley cast of characters, it consistently undermines the authenticity the aesthetics labor to achieve.

People are marvelous (if you let them).