Black Friday-a film by Anurag Kashyap

Just as my friends and family were begining to wonder if I had turned into a cynic as far as movies were concerned, I finally found the opportunity to write a positive review.

Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday blew me away. It made me relive a time in Bombay's history I hadn't particularly wanted to revisit but probably needed to. Bombay has always been home, a safe haven; the sounds of the public and the traffic are like the sounds of a hovering mother, familiar and reassuring. The humidity and bustle of the city are like a security blanket, the absence of which I feel now, miles away in the arms of Uncle Sam. Black Friday brought back a time when Bombay looked in the face of unimaginable terror. But does the stark flashback alone hold this movie together? No. It has a lot more to offer...a story wrapped in the believable folds of reality. It has all the elements that I found lacking in a few other movies I reviewed in my earlier entries. It follows the story of the Bombay blasts in what can be described best as a journalistic chronicle that uses the slideshow of events from history but zooms in on an episode we hadn't thought of or pondered over before.

Whenever I think of the Bombay blasts that sieged the city one afternoon on March 12th 1993, almost exactly 14 years ago, all I remember is how suddenly eveybody became either Hindu or Muslim. Before the explosions they had been for me just the people of Bombay. Another episode branded into memory is that of my father disappearing amidst the chaos that followed. None of his colleagues knew where he could be reached and he had been seen last, near one of the buildings that had crumbled to the ground after a bomb explosion. Time has never felt so heavy again since then. The moments had crawled over our cheeks along with our anxious tears as we prayed for just a phone call while neighbours kindly made up numerous heartening scenarios as to why he might have gone missing. My father had suddenly appeared in the doorway, a large watermelon in his hand, which now, thinking back I find funny. He entered, scrutinizing the crowd that had gathered in his home, confused by why we would be panicking. "If something were to go wrong I would call you, wouldn't I?" he asked nonplussed and we didn't bother to correct him with what the alternatives could've been, as we laughed and cried with relief. But even before our own relief permeated, news started pouring in about our less fortunate friends, schoolmates and aquaintances who had lost someone in that horrific tragedy. Those were are our stories. The stories we lived in. The stories we knew and thought about.

Black Friday zooms in on the stories of people who made up the larger canvas of that catastrophe, of those who were involved in the hateful conspiracy and of those who finally found the ugly roots of the cackling fire that left our city scarred. It follows the journey of Rakesh Maria (played brilliantly by actor Kay Kay Menon), then assistant police comissioner, whose incessant efforts uncovered the details of the conspiracy. It follows the psyche of Badshah Khan (played by Aditya Shrivastava) who assisted this hateful crime in the name of religion and finally having realized its magnitude, confessed, revealing the kings and pawns of this plot. His confession is still regarded by Police Comissioner Maria (now Inspector General) as one of the most detailed and elaborate leads that helped them crack the case.

I watched this movie, riveted. I related to the pyschology of some of the characters and saw the subtle metaphors, director Anurag Kashyap has so wisely used to set the pace of the movie. My earlier entry "The Poetry of Cinema" addresses the use of metaphors in scenes where the pysche of the character cannot be portrayed by words or dialogue and is instead illustrated by external elements. A scene where Badshah Khan finally realizes that his underworld kingpin has left him running from pillar to post when the law comes knocking, is cleverly rendered by Mr.Kashyap, with the image of a dog doing tricks for a treat. Cinematographer Nataraja Subramanian has captured the most dramatic scenes without affecting the news-broadcast-like coverage of the events. Even the few stillshots of the bloody aftermath that followed the blasts evoke extreme emotion.

After days of empathic barrenness, finally, having watched this movie, my skin bloomed, into those much needed goosebumps that appear when you connect with a storyteller's philosophy. His vision and his characters then walk beyond the shackles of the silver screen and into our musings and discussions

****Disclaimer: This blog entry in no way supports or subscribes to the authenticity of the events portrayed in the movie and merely reviews this story as a film.****