Moments after the UK premier of her first feature length film, Bombay Beach, I managed to pull aside Israeli music video director Alma Har’el for a few precious minutes in order to discuss, over a good old brew, her journey into the realm of documentary film.
Alma Har’el has without doubt accumulated waves of new fans and admirers following her recent run of the UK’s two most important film festivals, Sheffield Doc/Fest and Edinburgh Film Festival with her documentary film debut Bombay Beach. The film highlights the lives of 3 sundry characters inhabiting Bombay Beach, a humble and isolated area of Southern California situated on the Salton Sea with small population of around 300 residents. It is not the first time that the location has been a point of interest for documentary film (Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea by C. Metzler and J. Springer) or for photographers thanks to its unique and aesthetically appealing geography. In fact, it was during the making of the Concubine music video for her friends in the band Beirut that the director chanced upon meeting Benny Parish on the shores of Bombay Beach, an encounter which flourished into a two year documentary film project and one that formed a strong, symbiotic relationship with the Parish family and subsequently the documentary’s two other primary subjects, CeeJay Thompson and Red.
Yet, beyond the enchanted beauty of the Salton Sea landscape, one that Har’el tactfully and charmingly captures on film, its geography recalls a rather gloomy history. Originally destined to be the American French Rivera during the 1960’s and a holiday haven to rival that of Palm Springs, Salton Sea soon became an abandoned American dream as a result of harsh environmental factors and soaring construction costs. Ultimately, property developers became interminably distanced from the location and investors decidedly alienated themselves from the venture to construct the idyllic, go-to vacation resort. Nowadays, the region is sparsely populated with pockets of marginalised communities, such as Bombay Beach and occupied by derelict, deteriorating buildings which represent glimmers of bygone hopes and dreams.
Returning the focus back on the director, as previously mentioned Har’el is more habitually distinguished as an accomplished music video director, featuring in several Top Music Video polls and having received a VMA nomination for her music video of Beirut’s single Elephant Gun. Upon meeting the director I was keen to understand more about her career background in making music videos beyond the pages of Wikipedia. Originally working as a television presenter for a music show in Tel Aviv, Har’el’s passion for music is self-evidently marked from the outset of her working life. Moving on, the director reveals that she would deem her ‘first gig’ in directing to be a show she did for National Geographic, after this Har’el kicked off her filming career by mixing live video content with performers and artists whilst also pursuing an interest in still photography. Having not attended any film school institution and only having taken a year-long foundation course in editing on VHS tapes whilst residing in London, the Israeli director is without doubt a self-taught filmmaker who has a natural flair for poetic cinematography.
With regards to her work with music videos and the status of the music video today, Har’el expresses that there was indeed a time during the 90’s when the music video ‘was more of an art form’ and that this decade stands as a ‘golden era of music videos with the likes of Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and Michel Goundry.’ In this digital modern age with filmmaking becoming affordable on low budgets the director believes that music videos, although many being ‘beautiful’, are being produced on a mass scale and that the current issue regarding these videos is that no television channels exist for them anymore. The classic music channels such as MTV and VH1 are slowly dying as they now only show reality shows and have to compete with the continued rise of on-line broadcasting platforms such as Youtube and Vimeo. As a consequence, less and less attention and importance is being placed upon the production of music video and this is surely a trend that spurred on the director to pursue a new film path.
Before being whisked away to her next interview, I quickly asked Har’el whether her reception she has experienced so far in the film festival domain has drastically changed after making the directorial transition from music videos into documentary film. To this the she replies that whilst she attended film festivals as a music video director that ‘nobody ever talks to you when you go there.’ With that said, now with thralls of journalists eagerly waiting to meet and talk to Alma Har’el ‘the documentary filmmaker’ the transformation in reception must have surely been a mini shock to her system.
Nonetheless, the director seems to be adjusting well to the new limelight and judging from the gleaming, positive reviews of Bombay Beach and even a Tweeted thumbs up from American actor Alec Baldwin, Alma Har’el has unquestionably made a wise move into the world of documentary film.
Gina F Willis.
