Black Friday Revisited

'Are you aware that there are sixty crore Hindus in India? Can you finish them all? Do you think that the United Nations will keep quiet? What about India’s mentor, Russia?'

The discussion continued, occasionally very heated, as various options were raised.

Shaikh Ahmed spoke up eventually. 'But can't we scare the Indian government and the Hindus into submission? The best thing to do will be to turn the tables on the Hindus. If we can intimidate Hindus in such a manner that in the future they will not in their wildest dreams try to subjugate the Muslims..'

This thought seemed to appeal to all present, and heads began to bob in agreement. Taufiq clapped his hands and said it was a superb idea. But once again silence descended on the room.

Tiger spoke up. 'Bombay is the pride of India, its financial nerve centre. It is also the place where Muslims suffered the most during the riots. Why not display our might and power there? Any attack on Bombay will have international repercussions. The government will be shaken. The world leaders will be shocked. Let us plan to take over Bombay. We can capture Mantralaya, the municipal corporation building and the airport, hold political leaders hostage and cripple the economy. We will draw international attention to the downtrodden Muslims of the country. We will...'

Dossa, who sounded impatient and irritated, interrupted, 'But how can you do it? From where will the money come?'

'Money is no problem,' Taufiq interjected. 'But do you think it can do done successfully?'

'With proper planning the CIA has toppled governments and taken over countries. We have to only disrupt one city. I already have a network. We need to fine-tune it further and rope in some committed young people to execute the job,' Tiger said.

Suddenly the room was electrified. The glum faces lit up. The discussion grew animated.

-- pages 38-39, Black Friday: The True story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts by S. Hussain Zaidi.

The above words could have taken place a few months ago but they were spoken almost 16 years ago in December 1992 as highlighted by S. Hussain’s extremely well researched and engaging book, Black Friday. The planning of a terrorist operation in Bombay, executed by multiple bombings on March 12 1993, was fueled by the violence that took place in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid mosque demolition.

The Babri Masjid at Ayodhya had been a bone of contention between Hindus and Muslims for over five hundred years, since the time when Babur’s general Mir Bagi had destroyed a temple there in 1528 to build a mosque he named after his master. For many Hindus the mosque was reputed to be built at the birthplace of Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, and hence a sacred site. The antiquity of the mosque had given it similar sanctity for many Muslims.

Things were at relative peace until the existence of the Masjid was used by some right wing Hindu political parties, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to further their cause. The BJP wanted to demolish the Masjid and construct a temple in its place. The mosque was demolished on December 6 1992 and unleashed a wave of riots and violence across the country. "The worst incidents took place in Bombay, Ahmedabad, Banaras and Jaipur. There was widespread violence in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bidar, and Gulbarga."

The demolition of the mosque caused a lot of anger in the Muslim world and directly led to the bombings on March 12, 1993. Black Friday (both the film and book) shows that even though there were outside forces who were involved in the planning of the bombing, none of it would have been possible without the smuggling underworld network established by Dawood Ibrahim & Tiger Memon.

There were initial steps in the complex operation: first, to secure the arms and armaments and transport them to Bombay, and second, to recruit Muslim youths from Bombay and train them to cary out the bombings.

The weapons, including AK-56s, RDX and grenades, were smuggled into Bombay via the same complex network used for smuggling goods, so that meant local thugs and corrupt policemen were in on the take. Although, most people involved in the smuggling of the RDX had no idea what was being smuggled. Some were satisfied with the answer that the goods were something to avenge the blood of their Muslim brothers while others quietly looked the other way.

The golden aphorism of the underworld is that anything that is known to more than two people is no longer a secret. There are hundreds of informers or khabris in Bombay. They straddle the two worlds of the underworld gangs and the law enforcement agencies.

Almost all the people recruited or involved only knew that Tiger Memon was involved in the planning; they had no idea of the foreign groups who poured money into the operation. Tiger conducted the planning meetings himself and was responsible for the initial list of the targets as per Badshah Khan’s confession:

Tiger bhai announced that the targets had been selected and finalized. 'The first targets are the Air-India building at Nariman Point; the Bharat Petroleum oil refinery at Chembur; the share market at Fort; and the gold market at Zaveri Bazaar. Then there are five five-star hotels: the Sea Rock, the two Centaurs, Oberoi Sheraton and Taj Mahal; the top film theatres: the Metro, Regal, Excelsior, Sterling and Plaza; Shiv Sena Bhavan at Dadar; the BMC building at VT; Sahar International Airport; the RPO at Worli; and Mantralaya.'


The final list was shortened after one terrorist recruit was caught by the police. Fearing that he might reveal the operation to the police, Tiger Memon decided to carry out the attack within three days of the recruit’s arrest. Anurag Kashyap’s film version of Black Friday actually begins with the arrest of this recruit. In the end, few targets such as the oil refinery were dropped because of the difficulty in planning for the quick attack (the book highlights the planning in detail). It was shocking to read that the Taj, Oberoi and the Metro cinema were in that initial list as all three locations were targeted last week.

As for the training, the book does an excellent job in showing how the recruits were transported across India to Dubai and eventually to Pakistan where they were trained on how to use the Kalashnikovs and the RDX, among other weapons. A lot of the training details are rendered first hand from the confession of Badshah Khan. One can only imagine that similar camps were used this time around to train the terrorists.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the book is documenting the investigation process that resulted in the aftermath of the bombings. Because of the clues left around (the Maruti van with weapons and RDX, the unexploded scooters), police were able to quickly get some leads and chase some names down. Although, the entire process of convicting the criminals took months, with the court trial lasting almost 13 years. In fact, the release of Anurag Kashyap’s film version of Black Friday was delayed by the Indian courts for almost two years because they felt his film would influence the bombing trial.

The film

In January 2007, Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday was finally released. Although it is hard to know how many people in India saw it. In North America, the film got a limited release and was easily missed. Only 5 reviews are listed on Metacritic. Although, Matt Zoller Seitz included the film as his #1 best film of 2007. Kirk Honeycutt's review was very positive:

Anurag Kashyap's "Black Friday" is a superb and devastating piece of cinema that with justification can be compared favorably to Gillo Pontocorvo's classic "The Battle of Algiers" in its dispassionate yet sweeping journalistic inquiry into cataclysmic social and political events. While the events described may seem remote to some American viewers, our current encounter with modern-day terrorism gives "Black Friday" a clarion immediacy.

Kirk is right about the relevance of the film, although I do believe the film’s structure might make people feel distanced from the film, as highlighted by the review of Variety’s Derek Elley who commented that the "well-cast pic will appeal to specialized auds already tuned into the subject-matter but has limited theatrical chances offshore."

The film is not easy to watch as it does not spoon feed elements for the audience but good cinema does require or even demands its audience to pay attention. Even though Black Friday does throw around a dizzying amount of names and characters, one can still grasp the overall framework of the terrorist operations by watching the film without reading the book. Although reading the book enhances the experience as it allows one to navigate the topography of the film, meaning one can easily place each character and each dialogue in context. In fact, I found myself knowing exactly who each character was and their relevance to the case just by observing the scene. In that regard, the film does an excellent job of extracting enough detail from the book.

The film stands brilliantly on its own as it a case study of how terrorist operations are planned, executed and even investigated by the police. Plus, we get an insight into how terrorists go about recruiting young men and even training them. Even though the film is firmly rooted in the Bombay blasts, one can imagine similar structure and planning has gone on with other terrorist activities around the world.

Black Friday answers many questions about international terrorism:

Where does the money for terrorist activities come from? -- In case of the Bombay attacks, it was a combination of international terrorist organizations, many of them who had no previous connections to India. The organizations were able to pool money for the sole purpose of revenge.

How are men recruited for terrorist activities? -- Angry young men are found willing to die for their cause via local connections. If the recruits are local men, all the better because they know the terrain the best.

Where do the weapons come from? -- Money is one thing but getting weapons is the key. In the book and film, it is clearly shown that the guns and grenades were obtained from Pakistan. Investigation revealed that the grenades used were manufactured from an old Austrian machine bought by Pakistan in the 1970s.

How are the recruits trained? -- There are only a few places on the planet where young terrorists can be trained. It is essential to find a place where the government will not interfere when loud bombs and machine gun fire takes place in isolated country-sides or mountains. The films shows the training sites to be in Pakistan, but Afghanistan would apply equally.

How are weapons smuggled in the country? -- No outside force can cause havoc in a city without local help. In the case of the Bombay blasts in 1993, it was the local network established by Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon that allowed the weapons to make their way into the country.

Kashyap’s film is not only relevant but also responsible in trying to objectively show the events without taking sides. We see how the terrorists plan their operation while also seeing how the police can abuse their power in the goal of finding the truth. There is one element that Kashyap has included in the film to illustrate this point. Devoting a few minutes to the case of Rajesh Rajkumar Khurana adds nothing to the overall terrorist plan but it shows how an innocent man was wrongly arrested and intimidated. Khurana spent only a night in jail but during that night, some of the local police men showed that they were willing to rape arrested women to get information. Khurana was taunted that if he did not provide information, his wife would suffer the same fate. The next day after Khurana was released, he went home and shot his family, including his wife, their 3 year old son and 2 year old daughter, and drove them in a car, before shooting himself. Khurana was completely innocent, a fact later admitted by the police. This segment forms one of the most haunting scenes in the film. What goes through a man’s mind that he shoots his young children and calmly puts them in a car before taking his own life? In another instance in the film, inspector Rakesh Maria (Kay Kay Menon) is asked by a reporter about the human rights violation in arresting innocents. Maria responds by saying that what about the human right violations of the innocents that were blown by the bombs? The film shows the difficulty of working within law and order to find justice but also raises questions of ethics and honesty.

A running time of 150 minutes may appear long but considering how much material the film covers, it is easily understandable. When I first saw the film almost two years ago, I found the film quite engaging and even included it in my top films of 2007. Although, I had found myself questioning the length of certain segments, for example why so much time was spent on showing Badshah Khan’s journey across India, Bombay-Delhi-Rampur (Uttar Pradesh)-Jaipur & Tonk (Rajasthan) to Calcutta. Reading the book now, I can understand the relevance of including every scene in the movie. Badshah Khan was the only arrested terrorist that gave a detailed account of the training, planning and execution. Without his testimony, a lot of the elements might not have fit into place for the investigation. And the film shows that the length of time spent by him traveling across India only increased his frustration and convinced him to testify to the police.

Technically, the film is perfect as the camera angles are smart and switch perfectly between close-ups (only showing the eyes of certain characters in some situations) and long shots. In fact, at times there is so much action packed in a single frame that one cannot remove their eyes from the action. Plenty of scenes are filmed with amazing realism that one forgets that this is scripted cinema. The arguments between Badshah Khan and his gang come to mind when Khan learns that his passport has been burned. The camera spends enough time on the action as we see the argument swell up, almost boil over and then cool down. Kashyap also includes actual documentary footage of the attacks, speeches and even the demolition of the mosque seamlessly within his film.

Overall comments:

Dismissing the film by saying that it only applies to audiences who are familiar with the Bombay blast trial is akin to saying that the Godfather films are only of interest to people who know about the American Italian mafia or that Gomorra will only make sense for audiences who have read about the Naples Mafia or that Johnny To’s Election films are meant for audiences familiar with the Hong Kong Triads. Black Friday is much more than just a study of the Bombay Blasts; it is unlike any other film to come out of the cinematic world in the last decade. It is a precious cinematic treasure that is an essential guide to understanding the dynamics of global terrorism.

Black Friday (2005, Anurag Kashyap): 10/10
Note: all quotes are taken from S. Hussain Zaidi’s insightful book.

No Smoking revisited

I had a different experience watching Anurag Kashyap's film No Smoking a second time. There was no rush of excitement, just calm admiration. I picked up on little details that I missed the first time around and came close to confirming my theory about the film's meaning. As the final credits rolled, I mused about the clues. But then something happened which I didn't expect. There was an additional scene after the credits. Damn! This scene didn't exactly shatter my theory but simply made it very clear what the movie was about. But why was this scene there? Why? And then after that scene, there was one final song with Bipasha Basu. And at the song's conclusion, an un-necessary finale (can be a surprize depending on one's viewpoint).

I was also able to correct an earlier observation where I believed one scene reveled the film's true reality. There is no one such scene but a series of scenes which reveal what is going on. However a lot of elements in the film appear to be simply thrown in for a wow factor (memory flash back with canned laughter, side story about Cuba and the display of the character's inner thoughts) and add no value to the movie. Unless that one scene after the credits is removed, then these other cool scenes have some purpose.

Still an interesting and worthy effort!

Notes: Some elements in the movie that I loved. These won't make sense unless one has seen the movie.
-- The call centre for troubled souls
-- The Rs.1 coin needed for a soul to call its body for help: inner voice
-- The pyramid chain scheme where friends sold out their friends only to save themselves: every man for himself, society today.
-- Calcutta Carpets set-up: hell in an earthly form, complete with receipts.
-- The bath-tub: each troubled soul in the film has a safe spot to hide in; a vessel from which they go to their happy place. K heads to the bathtub whenever life is getting too much for him whereas other characters either hide under the bed or in a closet.
-- The police interrogation room: voice of reason/logic?
-- The film's visuals & sound -- dark when they have to be.

Additional comment:
A lot of the reviews about this movie mention how the story idea is similar to Stephen King's short story Quitters, Inc. Not having read the short story, I can only go on the rough story outline that I have found. From those outlines, it does appear that the idea of using torture to make someone quit smoking has been inspired from King's story. But the additional layers of Kafka and the soul vs body struggle appears to be Kashyap's.

Still, the lack of a tag which acknowledges that the film was "inspired" by King's story does dampen my feelings about the movie a bit. Why? Because such an act follows the trend of other Bollywood film-makers who choose not to credit their sources.

Bollywood's Fab 4 in Three Takes

Take 1: Johnny & Manorama -- Partners in Crime

"Bol kya naam hai tera" (Tell me your name)
"Johnny"
"Johnny Johnny.....telling lies...open your mouth."

When I first saw the trailer of Johnny Gaddaar, I was intrigued. Then I heard the music and I was hooked. I couldn't wait for the film but considering that this was not a big budget Bollywood movie, I knew it would be a long wait before I would get my hands on this film. In the meantime, I marveled at the film's simple yet perfect title. "Gaddaar" can be roughly translated as Traitor. But traitor can't fully express the emotion involved -- Gaddaar is not just a traitor but a sinister person who has gone over and beyond the limits of decency; the emotion contained in the word 'Gaddaar' reflects both the anger and disgust over such a person's action. Johnny Gaddaar's trailer shows 5 men sitting at a card table, cut to images of piles of cash, cut to fast paced action, a speeding train & a beautiful woman. Who is the Gaddaar? Johnny, ofcourse! But which of the 5 men is Johnny?





While I was waiting to learn about Johnny, I came across Manorama from the film Manorama Six Feet Under. The trailer indicated a murder mystery/darkish film cut in the mould of 2006's Being Cyrus. Now, I also wanted to track down Manorama.... But just like Johnny.., it would be a long wait. And thankfully, in both cases, the wait was worth it.

Johnny Gaddaar (2007, Director Sriram Raghavan): Rating 9/10

Usually when one has high expectations from a movie, they tend to be disappointed. But any such fears were dispelled within a few minutes of the film. Johnny Gaddaar's opening credits are probably the best I have seen in a long while and are modeled on 70's Bollywood movies where melodramatic music accompanied large bold text and images of the film's key moments.



In that regard, it is clear that Johnny Gaddaar gives a nod to those Bollywood movies from an era long gone.

The film is a delightful look at the 5 con men's lives and the women who live with these men (either physically with them or in their mind).

The movie's opening minutes give us a short but relevant look at the 5 men going about their regular life. From those few shots we can gather enough about their personalities and the weakness that exist in these men's lives. None of the characters are good men but are people who walk the gray line between good and bad. Shardul (played by Zakir Hussain) is the only person who appears to swim regularly in the pool of evil


while the leader of the pack, Sheshadri "It's not the age, it's the mile-age" (Dharmendra)
is someone who has gotten out of that same pool long ago and now simply arranges under the table deals.

Very early on the film we know who Johnny is.

But the true fun is watching how the other characters react -- no one knows who this Gaddaar is, so they all try to guess the culprit by analyzing the people around them. This is where we truly get a glimpse of the evil that lurks in these men's hearts. Sriram Raghavan has done an amazing job in allowing the film to continue long after when other movies would have ended. With a body count of 2, many other directors might have let the film end. But Johnny Gaddaar continues and throws in one final wicked twist with a subtle deceit.

It has been a long time since I have enjoyed a Bollywood film as much as this. Plus, the film contains many great one-liners, something that was present in all those 70's Bollywood movies. On top of that, there are plenty of references to old Bollywood movies and the sinister plot in the movie is inspired from Amitabh Bachchan's Parwana.

Manorama Six Feet Under (2007, Director Navdeep Singh): Rating 8.5/10

Ah Rajasthan! sultry, colorful and exotic Rajasthan.


Errr, this is not that Rajasthan!

This is a hot, dry and dull Rajasthan. A small village where nothing happens. Nope. Nothing. It is a place where a writer Satyaveer (Abhay Deol) lives with his wife and his child.



His first novel (a pulp mystery) was a flop and sold only 200 copies. Satyaveer is ashamed of his novel so much that he doesn't even keep a copy at home. But everything changes in his life when one night a mysterious woman visits him. As it turns out, this woman's name is Manorama (played by a very graceful Sarika), same as the character in Satyaveer's novel. Coincidence? Manorama wants Satyaveer to investigate the local politician P.P Rathore and take pictures of Rathore's possible affair. Even though Satyaveer has no experience in spying on people, Manorama encourages him because she is a big fan of his book and thinks that if he can write such an interesting detective story, he can surely catch P.P Rathore in the act.

But Satyaveer finds nothing out of the ordinary in Rathore's life. And just like that, Manorama disappears. He tries to find her but only runs into a dead end. Did she even exist? Just when he has given hope of finding her, he runs into a scared Manorama one more time where she blurts out that her life is in danger and if something happens to her, he should remember two facts -- her name is Manorama and her age is 32.

This is where the story could have ended had Satyaveer chosen to do nothing. But his curiosity gets the better of him and he tries to dig up more about her life.


Each door that he opens leads him into more trouble -- he is beaten up by thugs, has his motorcycle stolen, his wife leaves him, he falls for another woman

and is constantly threatened & under watch. Alone and helpless, he has nothing to turn to except two facts -- the name Manorama and age of 32. Only then, does the bright sun-light finally make his mind tick.

Although the film's pace is leisurely and tends to dip in parts, this is still a finely crafted film. The most impressive aspect is how much attention Navdeep Singh has paid to tiny details like getting the locales and feel of a small Rajasthani town right. There is one scene in the movie which is genius if Singh intended it to be. P. P Rathore (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) is giving a speech at a school function. Then Rathore does something which appears to be harmless but certainly catches the eye. I must admit this scene forced me to think of the mystery in a different light. When we finally learn the truth in the end, this scene takes on more importance because it fits in with Rathore's personality. But can any director intend such tiny detail? Or was Kharbanda diving too much into character? Or was that simple scene just a coincidence? Whatever the case maybe, Manorama Six Feet Under is certainly a film that deserves to seen and not buried under the massive pile of Bollywood movies.

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Take 2: Lights, Camera, Action...arrey Cue music.

Om Shanti Om (2007, Director Farah Khan): Rating 8.5/10

Song, Dance, Melodrama, Action, Tears, Emotion! That is Bollywood in a nut-shell. I grew up watching these fascinating talkies. When I was a child, I too was in awe of the stars -- I spoke the famous Amitabh one-liners from his films and listened to all the songs. Only when I grew up and looked back on these movies did I realize that these movies were quite bad. Most of those 70's and 80's Bollywood films had choppy editing, songs which popped out of nowhere and featured over the top acting. Even though Bollywood has improved since then, some of those old problems of recycled stories still exist. Farah Khan's enjoyable Om Shanti Om is a celebration of not only those horribly cheesy Bollywood films from 3 decades ago but even the bad Bollywood trends that exist today.



The first 30 minutes are a hilarious poke at elements which plagued Bollywood movies from the 70's -- melodramatic acting (if a son arrived home late at night, the mother almost had a heart-attack), bad costumes, cartoonish dance stops (only Bollywood can turn a badminton court into a song prop) and egoistic actors. Then just before the interval, the humour is put on hold when a darkish element creeps into the story. But even this dark tragedy is in keeping with the movie's overall theme of poking fun at Bollywood as the story is an updated version of Subhash Ghai's Karz. And keeping with the theme of modern Bollywood, Om Shanti Om takes the essence of 1980's Karz and spices it up with a twist element now found in many Bollywood films.



The acting and story are top-notch. As are the special effects of the film, especially the ones which inject a modern day Bollywood heroine into songs from 3 decades ago. If there is a let down with the film, it is with the music and some of the videos. Considering that Farah Khan has been one of Bollywood's leading choreographers and her first film Main Hoon Na featured lively videos, the average subdued videos in Om Shanti Om are disappointing. Also, the music is too low key. Now that could have been an intended choice but if a movie is poking fun at films, it should atleast have better music than the movies it is making fun of. Although, the finale song is a perfect update of the climatic song from Karz. I grew up loving Karz -- the reincarnation story really was something that has stayed with me over the years. And watching Om Shanti Om made me realize why one loves Bollywood in the first place -- that oh so Happy Ending!

Kudos also goes to Farah Khan for rolling out the red carpet for the film's cast and crew in the final credits. Just like in her first film, Farah turns the camera on all the people who worked on the film right from the producers to the spot boys.

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Take 3: No Lights but just smoke

No Smoking (2007, Director Anurag Kashyap): Rating 10/10

The best Bollywood film of the year has finally arrived. Everyone step back and mind the smoke.

A nightmare that gives way to a grey reality which leads towards a dark path into hell, which switches back to reality before finally diving down the hole into a hellish climax. And then after the flames die out, a soul-less body exists!

Huh? What does it all mean? Does it really matter what it means? Even if one tries to analyze cinema objectively, a person still reacts with a dose of subjectivity to what one sees in a movie -- one can't help reacting by instinct. Watching this movie, I remembered such films as The Game (1997), Fight Club, Alejandro Amenábar's Open Your Eyes (remade as Vanilla Sky) and the The Devil's Advocate. Call me crazy but one scene reminded of David Lynch's Inland Empire. There is a scene in No Smoking where the main character's memory is portrayed as a soap-opera with canned laughter. I thought of those soap-opera rabbits from Inland Empire.



And then there is the reference to Kafka. The main character is simply named K, a person (John Abraham) who can't stop smoking. He is beyond addiction. His wife Anjali (Ayesha Takia) wants to leave him because she can't stand his smoking. Finally, K decides he will try to quit. He is referred to a guru who can help him but his search leads him into the lower depths, literally. What follows is only a horrific nightmare.



There are plenty of clues in this non-linear film which give an idea as to the film's meaning but I still need to see the movie a second time to exactly draw lines at the moments of dream-reality sequences. Although, there is one scene, only one, which might give us a glimpse into the true reality of this movie. But at the end of the day, despite the questions, I can't help respond to this film instinctively. A fascinating mind bending roller coaster nighmarish ride of a person's soul through the darkest paths of hell. Wow!

Note: Updated comments added here

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The versatility of Vinay Pathak:

One of the best characters of 2006's Khosla Ka Ghosla was Vinay Pathak's Asif who teaches the film's characters on how to get revenge with a land shark. Vinay Pathak also played the idiot in Bheja Fry, an Indian remake of the delightful French comedy The Dinner Game. Now he has turned in two more colorful performances in Johnny Gaddaar and Manorama Six Feet Under. In Johnny he plays a gambler who can't avoid the cards


whereas in Manorama he plays a well meaning cop who is Satyaveer's only real friend in the movie.


Vinay has a few more interesting films coming up and one of them is Sudhir Mishra's slick looking Khoya Khoya Chand. I can't wait to see more of him on screen!

Black Friday, Pickpocket and the Swamp

Black Friday (2005, Director Anurag Kashyap):

Well Anurag Kashyap's film is finally officially released after spending more than a year banned by the Indian censors. The film's crime: depicting the inside story about the terrorists behind the multiple Bombings in 1993. The Indian courts felt that the movie might sway the jurors in passing judgement so the film was banned until the courts passed their sentence to the men implicated. Now that the court proceedings are done, the film can be finally be watched. And the verdict? This is film-making of the highest order!

However, can this movie be watched in isolation to the real life crime committed? That is the same question that comes up while watching United 93. While these films deal with events regarding terrorist strikes, the two films are set in different time contexts -- Black Friday starts when Bombay is rocked by the multiple bombs and examines events after that bombing, and only goes into the past via flashbacks. On the other hand, United 93 takes place mostly on the morning of the terror attacks and ends when the crime is finished. Both films are gripping in their own right but at the end of day Black Friday feels like an absorbing crime film, especially one that has graduated from a Ram Gopal Varma academy. That is not a surprize as Kashyap has written dialogues for previous RGV films, especially the intense Satya. If one took Black Friday to be an underworld crime film, then it would be considered a sheer genius work of art. The film breathes realism in every scene, more than that of regular RGV films. However, this is a movie based on real incidents and that puts it under a different spotlight -- One can't shake the feeling that Anurag Kashyup is treading a fine line between showing events objectively and trying to let subjective feelings about the criminals filter from behind the lens. Can a writer ever accurately portray the actual dialogues criminals talked during their criminal planning? No. This is where a screenplay has to be careful in that it does not go overboard with feelings of jingoism. I do believe that Kashyup achieves a fine balance here in that the dialogues are both angry yet restrained and never feel too melodramatic.

There is a sequence in the movie which goes into long extended details about a terrorist's ordeals in trying to escape India. This character hardly has a presence in the movie so it makes no sense to spend so much footage on him. With the exception of these long un-necessary scenes, the rest of the movie stays focussed to the task at hand which is about depicting the interrogation of the criminals and the odd background info about their motives. Since so many movies have been made in the last decade about Mumbai's underworld & outside terrorist support, some parts of the movie feel like recycled material. That being said, I loved the entire film from the opening shots to the closing credits -- dark, grim and harsh. Real? Not completely but seems to contain some truth to it. But a worthy film? No doubt about it!!!

Pickpocket (1959, Director Robert Bresson)

The best films are the simplest ones. And such is this case with this old classic. True to the title, the movie is about a pickpocket. The films starts with Michel's confession in how he got into stealing upto how he refined his slight of hand tricks. The precise camera-work lets us focus on only the essential details; not a single shot in the film is wasted. Martin LaSalle's cold emotionless expressions are perfect for depicting Michel and Marika Green demonstrates plenty of charm with only a few expressions as Michel's love interest. A quick and breazy film under 80 minutes.

La Cienaga (2001, Director Lucrecia Martel)

There are some films that require a person to be in the right mood. Safe to say, I was not in the mood to watch this depiction of upper middle class life in a small Argentine town. The film is well shot and is leisurely paced. In fact, the few sudden tragedies in the movie occur in such a matter of fact manner that if one blinks, they might miss the accident. Sure, few images stayed with me long after the film was over but overall, I was not drawn into this family saga. Lucrecia Martel got a Sundance award for this film's script which is not a surprizing fact. It seems such movies are tailor made to win awards at Sundance -- take a family movie, and just focus a camera here or there, show some off-beat characters and then sit back and watch the critics go crazy.