Monday, February 19, 2007

A reflection of the society

It’s not a movie. It is more like a mirror. A mirror of our society. A mirror of human nature, thoughts and consequential actions. What Black Friday does is it makes us think. It makes you wonder what humankind has come to. It makes you wonder about the darker side of human nature and what it can lead to.

Why was Babri Masjid demolished? Why did people resort to violence to avenge that? Why did the ghastly bomb blasts take place? These and many more questions come to one’s mind after watching the movie.

The movie has been made with a lot of passion. The final output justifies that. Anurag Kashyap has done full justice to the book it is based on. The book in itself is a masterpiece. And to do justice to it was a task. How often do we see movies that stick to the book in terms of the flow, content and characterization? Such movies tend to veer in a different direction. One can definitely differentiate the book and the movie. But that is not the case with Black Friday. The movie is very much what the book is. Anurag Kashyap has in a way brought the book to life. He does justice to each and every character. He makes each and every chase sequence and every interrogation seem real. He manages to keep the audience engrossed till the end. You feel as if you are in the thick of the action. Directing blast scenes can be tricky. There is also a possibility of scenes looking like bloodbath, but so is not the case. There are dead bodies, there is blood but that is shown with some aesthetic sensibility. Even the interrogation scenes have been shot brilliantly. Using a sepiaesque kind of lighting for these scenes works well. The music score by Indian Ocean adds to the film.

What works the most for the movie are the actors. They have not acted. They have lived the characters. You can feel for each and every character. Whether it is Maria’s efforts to solve the case, Tiger Memon’s anger or Badshah Khan’s impatience, one can very much feel and understand each of them. All the actors have performed honestly and fantastically.

There are some minor glitches in the movie but they certainly can be overlooked.
All in all a movie, which needs to get its due and a director who needs something more than legal battles for releasing his films.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Secular and Tolerant - Are We?

India is a democracy. India is a secular country. Indians are tolerant and secular individuals. No, I am not writing the preamble to the Indian constitution. I am just putting forth the points that are there in it. And reflecting these on the happenings in the country. Do these statements have even an iota of truth in them? Or are they just meant to make the preamble sound nice?

What else can one conclude? Especially after considering the intolerant approach shown time and again by us. Every time there is a film based on reality or an issue related to society, it fails to see the light of the day. Water had to be shot by Deepa Mehta in Canada because the filming was stopped in Varanasi. Black Friday failed to see the light of the day, till now. Now Parzania cannot be screened in Gujarat. Are we scared to accept the truth? Are we as so called ‘secular Indians’ scared to look at things that are actually happening? And what happens to us being democratic and secular? Are these terms or philosophies meant to be followed by political parties and that to when its election time? Are we as Indians no way connected with them? Do we always have to make an issue out of every film that is in any little way connected to reality or Indian beliefs? Do we always have to resort to violence every time a film based on religion, or based on truth is screened? Do we always have to let the political parties take advantage of our attitude and resort to violence? Don’t we have an opinion? And what do we achieve out of it anyway? In fact we seem to be losing! We have already lost an Oscar nomination, which we keep trying so hard for. And there is every possibility of losing meaningful cinema forever. And maybe in some time the so called ‘democracy’!

Friday, February 02, 2007

Smashed Out!

Everyone wrote him off! But it was not the first time that a sportsperson has been written off by the critics. One lean patch and speculations start flowing around about ending career and a flagging end. It happened with Sourav Ganguly. And more recently with the master blaster.

Till he ‘smashed’ his critics with a ton, most of them were talking not only of his loss in form, but also about his inclusion in the team. Most of them were of the opinion that like others, he should be made to prove himself in domestic cricket before being selected for the national side (like Ganguly). Doesn’t matter what he was and what he can and could do. Yes, they do have a point. One need not be in the team because of past exploits.

But they failed to understand one thing. Tendlukar might not have been ‘Tendulkar-The batsman’, but he was ‘Tendulkar-The cricketer’. His willow might not have delivered, but his bowling did on more than a few occasions. And am sure, his experience and advice might definitely have helped the team in more ways than one. What was missing was the aggression and the so to say ‘spunk’ in his batting.

One more accusation was that Tendulkar was playing for himself and not for the team! To me, that is the strangest criticism not only for Tendulkar, but for any person in the cricket team or any tem event. Because, even if a person plays for personal gains, one way or the other it benefits the team. Only in rarest of rare circumstances does a team lose becuase of personal interests of team members. And how can one forget the times when Tendulkar has single-handedly won matches for India! His knock against the Windies in the final match was proof enough of his abilities as a match winner.

With his batting on field and verbal batting off-field (“I don’t care what X, Y, Z says about my batting…” sentence), he has managed to silence his critics for quite some time.