A kaleidoscopic portrait of Bombay’s teeming street life, Mira Nair’s first narrative feature, Salaam Bombay!, combines a documentary-like sense of place with a poignant exploration of everyday resilience. After the young Krishna (Shafiq Syed) is cast out by his family, he makes his way to the city, where he encounters love, friendship, and tragedy in the face of extreme poverty. Drawing compellingly naturalistic performances from a cast consisting largely of children she met on the streets, Nair creates an intimate human drama that is by turns heartbreaking and life-affirming, an ode to childhood that overflows with colorful urban chaos and a deep compassion for those who live on society’s margins.