Kaala Patthar (1979) :
Brief Review -
Yash Chopra's haunting melody for mature audiences. One should give it to Yash Chopra, superstar Amitabh Bachchan, top writers Salim-Javed, and everyone included in the cast for even thinking of making such a dark movie back in time on this scale. Such dark and haunting films don't even work in today's time when audiences are much more literate than the 70s, and then someone actually attempted it in the late 70s, when Bollywood was all about masala movies, is definitely pathbreaking. Not because it was based on a true event of the Chasnala Coal Mine disaster-it hardly is honest with the actual event and numbers-but because it dares to go against the mainstream cinema, which was safe if you look at the starcast. There is enough mass masala in this one too, and that was obvious because of Salim-Javed and the multi-hero narrative. Kaala Pattha is almost 3 hours long, and 2 hours of that runtime belong to your regular mass cinema. The next 40-45 minutes are what make my headline meaningful-a haunting melody. Look at the framework, the background score, the cinematography, and the intensity of the narrative, and tell me, does it look like an 70s movie? No. It looks far superior to what Mission Raniganj achieved after 4 and a half decades. Due to multiple love stories, the narrative feels lengthy because you have three heroes and three heroines, so you need to give some space to explore their love stories. That hurts the narrative and its grip in a way. Needless to say, it was a commercial tantrum because the rest of the film was only for mature audiences, who come in few numbers. All the actors have performed really well. More than its script and screenplay, Kaala Patthar emerges as superior on the technical fronts. Yash Chopra's direction and vision surely make it what we call "a film ahead of its time," even though it lacks a few things in its writing. Overall, still fantastic!
RATING - 7/10*
By - #samthebestest.
