Our fairy tales have always been about love. A beautiful princess, a handsome prince on a white horse, and the happily-ever-afters. On the eastern side of the world, Salim faced death for loving Anarkali – a non-noble royal courtesan who was entombed alive for reciprocating. The love between a prince and a courtesan was forbidden, and people have paid for it with their lives.
Stories shape us. We are always looking for self-representation in arts, be it books or movies, and often on the subject of love. In a world obsessed with the idea and symbolism of love, love in the true sense is a luxury. Love is still forbidden today but with new parameters – religion, caste, skin color, sexuality, economic background, politics, and probably more.
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Gitanjali Rao’s Bombay Rose is one such journey of love, ordinary love, of people like you and me, with our own socio-economic backgrounds, unique sexualities, and unique fantasies we try to fit into the love templates provided to us via cinemas.
“That magnifying lens will make the smallest of the dreams look big, right?”
There’s subtlety in narration, the kind of communication which goes beyond well-written dialogues. The characters emote with how they look at each other, for how long they look at each other, what they visualize with their own reference to fairy tales, their gains, their losses, their wishes, their own set of beliefs, all of it which still makes a story intimate on the busy, vibrant streets of Bombay. The art of animation here is at its finest.
Bombay Rose gets dreamy, even fantastical, yet it starkly stays rooted in reality for all its characters, particularly women. In the constant push and pull of emotions, there is a constant reminder, a reality check of where they all stand in terms of their age, work, sexuality, and religion in the continuous push and pull of emotions.
“He’s a Muslim, don’t forget.”
Despite the dark truths portrayed in brutal honesty, at the core of this visual treat, the message is utterly simple – more love. Love is not a luxury but free from everything that stigmatizes it. It is a celebration of all colors of roses – red, carmine, crimson, reddest red, all of it without waging wars.
“Light it, Salim.” “42 takes.”
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Bombay Rose was released worldwide on Netflix on 8th March 2021, International Women’s Day, joining the list of Asian origin movies like Tokri and Sitara. If you have not watched it yet, please do. Such films are rarely made, and I am beyond proud that a woman was at the forefront in creating this.
