Arts

Salaam Bombay! an
Indian film, but
theme is universal

SALAAM BOMBAY! With Shafiq Syed,
Rahubir Yadav. Directed by Mira Nair.
Mirabai Films. At Cineplex Odeon thea-
tres.

It isn’t easy living on the streets of Bom-
bay. And it’s scarcely easier having your
heart broken at the movie house, particu-
larly when there’s no cinematic redemption,
and vou know the story is all too real.

Salaam Bombay! is that kind of film, but
that’s no reason not to see this revealing
portrait of poverty, abuse and neglect in one
of India’s crowded and impoverished cities.
Even though the locale is thousands of miles
away, and the culture is different, there are
parallels to be drawn, and this film can
quicken your resolve to work for a happy
ending in real life.

Krishna is a village boy of some nine
years who heads to Bombay after the circus
with which he has been travelling abandons
him. The intensely crowded and noisy
urban setting is almost as foreign to the
young innocent as it would be to a non-
Indian, but “Chaipau” — as he is renamed
by his new companions — soon learns,
after a fashion, how to survive as a street
urchin.

This isthe kind of story Charles Dickens
might have written had his birthplace been
different. Like Oliver Twist, Chaipau finds
himself among a rogues gallery of prosti-
tutes, pimps, brutal cops and abandoned,
life-hardened children. And like Oliver,
Chaipau is a compelling character. While
struggling to raise enough money to get
back to his village, he is never quite desensit-
ized, attempting to rescue in turn several of
his doomed cohorts — an addicted drug-
peddlar. a teenage girl sold into prostitu-
tion, and a prostitute trying to escape her
pimp/lover.

Bombay’s dirty streets may be the tab-
leau on which this film draws a tale to prick

the social conscience of India, but the scenes
of callousness, and love and trust betrayed
by poverty, have universal application.
Baba the pimp speaks only Hindi, but his
deceitful charm and senseless brutality
shows the tragic failure to communicate in
any language.

Neither he, his prostitute lover and her
frequently neglected daughter, nor the bro-
thel madam with the permanently hardened
visage are stereotypes. They are, however,
archetypes united with their brothers and
sisters around the world in a bond of ignor-
ance stemming from class-stratified socie-
ties and economic exploitation.

If this were a story of unrelieved misery, it
would be far less of a movie. But the charms
of the children keep shining through the
griminess. And there are scenes, such as
when the prostitute plays shadow games
with her daughter, that display human
kindness. It is not humankind that is cor-
rupt, it is instead the system that turn every-
thing to tragedy.

If Salaam Bombay! has a thematic fault,

it is that it presents no way out of the
malaise. We’re left to conjecture whether
Chaipau will ever find a way out, or if the
world’s dispossessed are condemned to an
eternal spiritual and economic impover-
ishment.

Salaam Bombay! suffers some artistic
drawbacks, including scenes that could
have done with another couple of takes or
more creative editing, and some disconti-
nuity gaffes: after Chaipau, working asa tea
carrier, has dispensed with some of his
wares, he’s seen walking with a rack of full
glasses.

Such problems likely display a modest
budget, rather than lack of artistry. Defi-
nitely not a love story, this is a film to make
you angry — not at people, but at the per-
petrators of a system that, among other
crimes, denies children their birthright.

— Dan Keeton

Exercise for peace Feb. 13-18

There’s a way to get your mind off cruise
missiles, get healthy exercise and help move
international relations into the realm of

peaceful competition and co-operation, for _

five days next week.

It’s called Fit Trek, or in full, the

Vancouver-Odessa Fit Trek, and it pits the
athletic prowess and endurance capabilities
of Vancouver residents against those of
their sister city in the Ukraine.

Part of the Canada-USSR Fit Trek pro-
gram taking place in five Canadian cities
through January and February, it involves
both individual and collective efforts. Indi-
viduals can rack up one “kilometre” of
“travel into space” for every 20 minutes of
their favourite exercise activity. The local
sponsor, the Vancouver Parks Board, will
accept all entries phoned in between 5 p.m.
to 9 p.m. from Monday, Feb. 13, to Friday,
Feb. 17 (681-1141, locals 2276 or 2283).

Bea
Hit Trek
leader! |

The board reports that: 11 community
centres and other groups have staged their
own events so far. You can phone the parks
board to find out if a group in your area is
involved.

The Vancouver-Odessa Fit Trek culmi-
nates on Saturday, Feb. 18 with a mass
participatory walk, run, wheel or whatever,
for 8 kilometers along the Stanley Park
seawall. It begins at Brockton Oval at 8:30
a.m., with prizes drawn at the termination
point, Ceperley Park at Second Beach.

Registration forms are available at any
Vancouver parks board recreation and
community centres before Feb. 9. After
that, registration is at Brockton Oval, 7:30-
8:30 a.m., the day of the event. T-shirts are
available for the first 2,000 entrants. Entry
fees for youth are $8 before Feb. 9, $13 after.
_. For adults, it’s $12 and $17.

Dance for Nicaragua,
folk concerts nine! Mast

Roy Forbes, Shari Ulrich and Spirit of
the West are some of the headliners of the
first annual Winter Roots Music Festival
running Feb. 9-Feb. 12, at the Vancouver
East Cultural Centre and The W.IS.E.
Club. The event, organized by the Acous-
tic Connection Music & Cultural
Society, features mostly Canadian talent.
For more information call 684-4022.

* * ok

American topical singer and multi-
faceted folk musician John McCutcheon
will perform Tuesday, Feb. 7, at the Van-
couver East Cultural Centre at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $10 and are available by
phoning 254-9578. Sponsored by the
Vancouver Folk Music Festival.

ok * *

Nicaragua sufferéd a devastating hur-
ricane last year, and the Canadian
government’s aid package was dismally
low, particularly when compared to the
relief effort mounted for Jamaica. To
help remedy this, several organizations,
including Oxfam and the Vancouver
Folk Music Festival Society, are spon-
soring a benefit dance for Nicaragua on
Saturday, Feb. 11,8 p.m. at the Maritime
Labour Centre, 1818 Triumph St. in
Vancouver. It features Lillian Allen & the
Revolutionary Tea Party Band. Tickets
are $10. Call Oxfam, 736-7678.

* * *

Headlines Theatre Co. presents its
audience participation play, Sanctuary?,
at several locations throughout the
Lower Mainland, Feb. 17-March 12.
Audience members are invited to call a
halt to the action and present alternative
plot development, in order to gain
understanding of the plight of refugees in
Canada. Phone 738-2283.

* * *

Submissions for an art show against
racism to be staged in September are
now being accepted. The display, entitled
Fear of Others/La peur de l’autre, will
feature visuals from more than 200
artists from up to 20 countries, according
to organizer Claudine Pommier, who
said some 50 artists representing 11
countries are already registered. Entrants
should send one professionally photo-
graphed slide of each work, for a maxi-
mum of three entries, to Fear of Others,

Dangerous

If negotiations go according to expec-
tations, the story of Canada’s “danger-
ous patriots” will go before the cameras
this summer.

Dangerous Patriots was the name ofa
book on the reminiscences of William
Repka, one of the fighters for labour who
were interned in three concentration
camps in Canada under the War Mea-
sures Act during the early days of World
War II. It is also the name of a 90-minute
feature film that will link the events of
today — chiefly, the 1986 strike at the
Gainers Meat Packing Plant in Edmonton
— to the 1940s.

The idea was conceived by Merrily
Weisbord and Michael Ostroff, who aim
to raise some $192,000 by April. The

’ project, which has been supported by

Nicaraguan child atop the rubble of a
bombed out building presents graphic
portrayal of life in the besieged Cen-
tral American nation, the target of
U.S. supported contra attacks. The
photo is by Kamloops Daily News
photographer Wendell Phillips and
was part of an recent exhibit at the Art
Gallery of the South Okanagan, along
with a display by illustrator Claire
Kujundzic. Both were co-sponsored
by Penticton Tools for Peace. Phillips,
a respected Canadian photo journal-
ist, has published two books of pho-
tographs on Nicaragua, and one on
Venezuela. :

5570 Blenheim St., Vancouver V6N 1P5,
or phone 263-2058.

* % *

A retrospective exhibition of architec-
ture and landscape photographs by
Canadian Robert Bourdeau will run at
the Vancouver Art Gallery, Feb. 8-April 3.

Patriots film

dozens of unions and their locals across
Canada, needs another $500,000, accord-
ing to the latest newsletter from the
Labour Film Project.

As muchas 60 per cent of this could be
raised from Telefilm Canada and the
Ontario Film Development Corpora-
tion, abetted by a theatrical distribution
deal and/or TV sales, the newsletter
states.

Recently the project hired scriptwriter
Carol Bolt, whose previous works
include productions on the On-to-
Ottawa Trek, Gabriel Dumont and
Emma Goldman.

Those wishing to donate to the effort
should send contributions to Labour
Film Project, 280 Metcalfe St., Suite 502,
Ottawa, Ont. K2P 9Z9.

10 e Pacific Tribune, February 6,1