Kaalaa Saa­boon aur Kaalaa Shukravaar

” The Author loses his author­ity over what he has cre­ated the moment his work is put into the com­mer­cial arena, or in the pub­lic domain..that’s the first les­son i learnt about film­mak­ing ” — ANURAG KASHYAP.

Is cin­ema just for enter­tain­ment ? I don’t know. Some pow­er­ful films just slap us straight in the face about the knowl­edge or inter­est we have in cur­rent affairs. We knew that bomb blasts hap­pened in Bom­bay in 1993 just as news and check­ing for the casu­al­ties just as a cricket score. The crowded and busy Bom­bay was back into life very soon after the trauma.

The dif­fer­ence between a docu drama and docu­fic­tion is that drama relates more to the doc­u­men­tary or tele­films dra­ma­tized [ like Kutram — Nadand­hadhu enna ? ] whereas the docu­fic­tion is a film genre itself. There are hand­fuls of docu fic­tion avail­able in Indian cin­ema with­out any love affair or romance. One such stun­ning effort is ‘Black Fri­day’.
Plot :

It’s def­i­nitely not a story but a col­lec­tion of true events. The film is based on the book writ­ten by S. Hus­sain Zaidi [ Cor­re­spon­dent — Crime — Mid­day paper ]. The film is told in 5 dif­fer­ent episodes.

Series of bomb blasts rock Mum­bai in March 1993 and the case is taken by Rakesh Maria a senior police offi­cer. The police find more scoot­ers and cars loaded with explo­sives. The ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion gets the sec­re­tary of Tiger Memon, a busi­ness man and under­world con­tact per­son. Police slowly unfolds the largest crim­i­nal case in Indian his­tory and traces the peo­ple involved in it. The film ends with a note about the case hap­pen­ing in the court at that point of time.

View :

I haven’t seen such a strik­ing cin­ema in the recent past [ Remem­ber Ardh Sathya of Govind Nih­lani — I am yet to watch Satya, Kaun]. It’s like read­ing the essences of the hap­pen­ings. I have to heartily appre­ci­ate the man behind this work ‘Anurag kashyap’ and his team. Right from the first frame, you get into the film with­out any voice over or intro­duc­tion to the events. Anurag has got the magic blend of actual events and fic­tion as needed
I never felt that I was watch­ing a docu fic­tion with­out any songs/entertainment ele­ments. Com­mend­able job by the editor.

The artists have done a per­fect job not over­do­ing their roles any­where and of course I didn’t get the feel of cin­ema at all. No make-ups, jazzy cam­era work, catchy BGM ..Noth­ing. The inter­ro­ga­tions, police, their inves­ti­ga­tions, chas­ing are just real. This film got the finest chase, I have ever seen in the Mum­bai slums.

The cast­ing direc­tor has done a com­mend­able job by pick­ing the right artists for the char­ac­ters, aptly. Espe­cially  KK Menon, Tiger Memon, Inspec­tor Dan­gle and all. Unfor­tu­nately, Naseerud­din shah and Irfan were pro­posed to han­dle Tiger memon and Badhsha khan roles, respec­tively — they turned it down because of their ori­gins and the sen­si­tiv­ity of the mat­ter. The first inter­ro­ga­tion scene was so grip­ping that you just expect the unex­pected to hap­pen any­time. The life after their work was shown with utmost care and orig­i­nal­ity. They roam and roam with frus­tra­tion and less money in hand. I liked the scene where Baad­shah glanc­ing at the mid­dle age nor­mal woman when he roams to hide him­self in remote places.

As expected, the movie was not released in 2004 [ the trial was hap­pen­ing then ] and got released in Feb 2007. I am very sure this was not aimed for box-office by any means. It was such a raw film.

Jack Nichol­son says in ‘A few good men’ — “You can’t han­dle the truth”. Yes.. we can­not han­dle the truth depicted in this film. A bril­liant and aston­ish­ing effort by Anurag kashyap.

–Toto.

Related Posts B

1. Payanam — Mod­ern Tiru­malai Thenkumari
2. Absolute Power — Neat thriller