Hutch Jingle [link]

Danny Pope, 44 year old Australian cinematographer who also worked on some memorable TV spots like the ‘Fevicol overloaded bus’ had this to say about the pug ‘Chika’ which belongs to a Goan couple.

“We allowed the dog and the little kid, Jairam, to spend some time together and they became friends and it would follow the boy everywhere and all we had to do was shoot. Every shot was done in a couple of takes; the dog was really lovable; infact when he was climbing stairs, his stomach would drag on the stairs — he had such short legs!”

 

Black Friday Movie Review – By Martin D’Souza, Bollywood Trade News Network

If you don’t have the stomach to digest the truth, stay away from this one; if you do, then this one’s for you. Anurag Kashyap’s BLACK FRIDAY, which finally saw the light of day is a grim work of art that dispels doubts, lays bare the facts and brings into focus the events that led to the blasts. Kashyap zeroes in on the facts in a simple documentary style treatment that leaves the viewer zapped.

The movie opens with the scene on March 9, 1993, showing Gul Mohammed telling the cops that there is a conspiracy underway to bomb major locations around the city. The police dismiss his confession. Nay, ridicule it. Three days later the city is torn asunder.

The camera then moves to the blast scene at Bombay Stock Exchange followed by the Passport Office in Worli taking the viewer back in time to the day when all of Bombay was numbed by the intensity and planning of the murderous onslaught to cripple the country’s economic capital by targeting a certain section of people.

The way Tiger Memon is shown as the master-mind behind the blasts and the chilling manner in which he goes about gathering foot soldiers to carry out his nefarious plan highlights the simmering anger within the minority community. Pawan Malhotra as Tiger Memon is extraordinary. The scene in Dubai where the underworld meet to plan to avenge the Bombay Riots and his dialogue, gives the viewer a ringside view of how the blasts were planned.

The helplessness of those who were ‘used’ to plant the bombs, the police rounding off the suspects and the family and their pleas, “Mein kuch nahin jaanta,” is captured well by the director.

The scene to watch out for though is when Kay Kay Menon, playing Rakesh Maria, tells Badshah Khan, played by Aditya Srivastav, “Ch*** hain tum. Ch*** banaya tumko Tiger Memon ne. Bomb fatne ke pehle, nikal gaya parivar ke saath Dubai ke liye.” Don’t miss this scene. In fact, this scene is what pieces the movie together and highlights how sentiments of both the communities were used to initiate the riots and blasts respectively.

In the end, the moral is simple to understand; if there were no riots there would have been no blasts.

This movie is a tribute to those who lost their lives in the riots between December 1992 and January 1993, and those who were killed in the blast on March 12, 1993. It’s also a salute to the tireless efforts put in by the Mumbai police to nab the culprits. Like I said in the beginning, BLACK FRIDAY, based on the book by S. Hussain Zaidi, is not for the faint-hearted. But you cannot wish away what has been!

Full marks to Kashyap