Black Friday

S. Hussain Zaidi published his book Black Friday in year Oct 2002. Anurag Kashyap made a movie based on the very book but could not release it till Feb 2007. Bombay HC had court stayed the release of the film, until the judgement in the 1993 bomb blasts case was delivered by the TADA court.
Court thought that Cinema as a medium has greater reach than print media. Certainly true enough. We eat, drink and live movies. No qualms about it whatsoever.

Black Friday gives us a chilling inside of the events before and after the greatest terrorist attack on India in recent times. A series of blasts that rocked the whole nation and world. It is a narrative of how a fanatic abused the system and burnt the financial capital of India. "Mein akkha mahim jala dalega," shouts Tiger when he sees his charred office post Babri Masjid riots. The desperation to take revenge finally translated in the worst of jehadi mission of all time.

The events and characters are all real, at least that's what the writer of the book says after 4 years of meticulous research. Director Anurag Kashyap just needed to relive them for the cinema screen. Unarguably he has done it brilliantly. A relatively unknown star cast helped in keeping the characters grandeur than the actor performing them.

In such cinema, where the element of surprise is minimal, creating moments which can keep viewers' attention is really difficult. Cinema as a medium is all about saying what you say, in ways that others can understand. Success can not come when the director tries to speak in his own language without concerning about the viewers. Anurag is just too perfect in this art.
Close camera angels, varied colors, and variation of speed - techniques that make this movie a memorable visual experience. It is a delight for the eyes to see those torture room scenes in Red tints, or blasts in slow motion.

You can not escape showing blood if you talking about a blast. And trust me, he has shown plenty. No hesitation whatsoever in showing gory pictures. Grey is the color which can capture this mood the best. And he has used a lot of it.

Movie is really fast paced. Indian Ocean's ever rocking background score gives it all the more effect.Sounds make you feel the tension in the scene. There is this scene where just after a blast, one person is trying to call for help. In movie, they have shown it silent. The effect it has the viewers is just unimaginable. His pain could not have expressed in any cry of known pitch.

And yes, though he has not tried to hide any detail, he has used a lot of symbolic language. The scene when Badshah Khan and others reach Tiger's friend in Tonk is one such example. Dog trying to chase the ball thrown by his master is getting fooled speaks a lot about thoughts going through Badshah's mind at that time. camera zooms on Badshah for a moment and it all looks so nicely written there on his face. Brilliant.

KK Menon as ACP Maria has done a great justice. His dilemmas and frustrations are visible in those eyes. He is on a mission where he knows odds of getting wrong are enormously high. The responsibilities of getting justice for the victims is a pressure that could break any human. He tells it aptly to the media person's on question of Human Right violations by Mumbai Police, "300 se jyada log mare the, unke human rights ka kya. ham log jin logon se lad rahe hai vo criminal hai, aur jyada khatarnak hai kyunki unpar jehad ka bhoot chadha hua hai. Das me se ek do baar galti hamse bhi ho hi jaati hai, aur nirdosh log pakad me aa jate hai, par koi bhi itna perfect nahi hai." I just love him.

Very well made Anurag. Indeed.