Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer’s 2004 documentary Plagues & Pleasures On The Salton Sea covers the strange history of the manmade body of water in southern California, and how it sustained a vibrant tourist industry in the 1950s until excessive salinity made the region hostile to wildlife. Alma Har’el’s documentary Bombay Beach doesn’t bother establishing much context for its study of one run-down town on the shores of the Salton Sea; it’s more impressionistic, splicing together images of extreme poverty and decay while peeking in at the lives of three Bombay Beach residents. Har’el spent a year, off and on, following Red, an elderly drifter who sells bootleg cigarettes to a community of wayfarers and drug addicts; CeeJay, a high-school football star who moved to Bombay Beach from Los Angeles because he knew he’d get more attention there; and Benny, a high-strung elementary-schooler whose complicated mix of neurological and mental disorders are putting stress on the marriage of his survivalist parents. Har’el shoots vérité scenes of Bombay Beachers imbibing intoxicants and roaming through landscapes littered with dead fish and spent bullets, then intercuts them with staged sequences of ordinary people dancing, while the music of Beirut and Bob Dylan plays.