Black Friday

[Ravi]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000911190

May 05, 2005

Black Friday
By Kirk Honeycutt


Bottom line: A superb and devastating piece of cinema.

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.

The focus is bombings that rocked Mumbai (then Bombay), India, over several hours March 12, 1993. The film starts moments before the first blast, a brilliant tour-de-force of cinematic energy, suspense and compassion for the victims. The use of slow motion and crane shots gives the viewer a almost God-like view of the carnage that transpires in his name.

After the chaos, which the film shows without lurid sensationalism, the movie follows the police inquiry into the Muslim gang responsible, whose gangster leader is already safely hiding in Dubai. Working from a book by Hussain Zaidi, writer-director Kashyap tracks back and forth in time to fill a viewer in on the personalities involved. It examines the communal rioting that took place the previous December in which mobs, incited by irresponsible Hindu religious leaders, destroyed an ancient mosque sacred to Islam and brutally attacked Muslims in an orgy of rape, murder and mayhem.

Kashyap refuses to judge any of the players. He is simply determined to show viewers what ruthlessness can be performed by people in the name of ego, religion and ethnicity. The closest the film comes to a judgment is an outburst by the leading police investigator in which he condemns anyone who destroys lives in the name of God.

What makes this film so controversial in India -- causing its director to say he doesn't know when the film may get seen there -- is that "Black Friday" names names. There is no fictionalization of the book, no changes in names or imaginary characters. So for once, Indian politicians, gangsters and police are all on the same side: No one wants "Black Friday" to get a release.

The film, which won the jury prize at the recent Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, next plays at the San Francisco International Film Festival.