‘Black, White & Gray: Love Kills’ Series Review - Love, Sex and Murder

The Car Tire Change scene could be basking in the cinematic spotlight. First, we got Crazxy in which the process of changing a flat tire yielded so much pressure and so much tension that the audience became nervous and started chuckling. In Black, White & Gray: Love Kills, the same action initially produces suspense, then tension, then violence, and then something otherworldly. The tone swings wildly, the scene tilts towards comedy, and everything should have collapsed ideally. But writer-director-editor Pushkar Sunil Mahabal is a man of chutzpah. He doesn't just sell this scene effectively; he also makes you believe that this is precisely what could have occurred during a moment like this. What the Indian landscape needs is more filmmakers like Sunil Mahabal, who are unafraid to take big swings. It's a pity, then, that the filmmaker applies his talent to a shallow series that only appears progressive. Beneath the ostentatious mixture of fiction and documentary, Black, White & Gray peddles an unoriginal, ridiculously calculated narrative that's not very different from a cheap, manipulative thriller whose job is to just excite the senses of the audience.

The six-episode series traces the romance and the tragedy that infects a boy-girl relationship. Let's call her The Girl (Palak Jaiswal) and him The Accused (Mayur More) because the show seems to be saying that what happens here can happen to anybody. The Accused secretly takes The Girl to a hotel one night and comes out with her dead body. The media quickly (and unsurprisingly) arrives at a rape-and-murder conclusion, which everybody accepts instantaneously. The series, through the perspective of a police officer, the Accused's parents, and other victims, tells us that the truth is a little more complex than what the mainstream media feeds the country. We first see the events through a black-and-white gaze in which The Accused is presented as - and I am using these words loosely - a victim, a good guy. The villain is The Girl's father (Anant Jog) and his henchman (Deven Bhojani), who is sent to dispatch the "good guy." The reason behind the double quotes is that The Accused kills as well as tries to kill people who threaten to expose him. His survival instincts, or call them animal instincts, emerge in the form of violence, anger, and hostility. However, since the drama is seen through the eyes of The Accused, who gives an interview to a British journalist, More's character comes across as a passionate lover, an unfortunate victim.

With Black, White & Gray, Sunil Mahabal is clearly attempting to display the rot in the system. He criticizes police for illegal raids; he blames the media for spreading hate. Even ordinary citizens aren't spared (a police officer mocks people for having a great interest in the lives of serial killers). However, the problem with the show is that these statements are dispensed like moral lectures. The carefully calculated script takes us through events that come with built-in opportunities for "hard-hitting sermons." The Girl's best friend says that, according to Indians, a good girl is someone who doesn't think about sex. Someone else says that rich people only like to behave like saviors. A man casually comments that the punishment for killing a policeman and a poor man is entirely different. We also hear this line about how creating and selling hate is easy. Sunil Mahabal becomes so absorbed with making blunt points that he, at one point, breaks the fourth wall and winks at us through this line, which a police officer says to the interviewer/documentary maker/journalist, "Will your audience accept it?" This is Sunil Mahabal's way of acknowledging his tonal leaps and his "different approach" to filmmaking. He indicates that he has made something wild; if it fails, he can blame the audience for not accepting it. Hence, Sunil Mahabal comes across as both self-conscious and self-satisfied.

In Black, White & Gray, Sunil Mahabal blames the news channels for promoting sensational content. What's funny is that the show itself is nothing but sensational. Lines like "I didn't kill the officer, but he died in front of me," "I will reveal the truth that will change the direction of the case drastically," and "Is she alive?" are deployed like cheap cliffhangers that tease the audience. All Sunil Mahabal can do is generate an atmosphere of thriller, which gives the show an aura of competence. The events, however, are sorely unconvincing by the standards of both reality and fiction. For instance, we are required to believe that a police officer visits a hospital alone for eye treatment (he cannot see properly - he is blind). The series tries to explain his decision through gestures like his refusal to take help from other people for every minor task and his bickering sessions with his wife. Still, I, even for a second, couldn't digest the officer's decision to take a solo journey. He's just in this situation so that he can promise the driver that he will take care of his son's education, which gives rise to that remark about rich people's savior complex thing. Almost every incident is designed for verbal lessons. Sunil Mahabal wants to be a filmmaker-cum-journalist. But his "report" is very weak. There is no anger, no bite, no sense of pity in the moments that are presented on the screen. And Sunil Mahabal also doesn't do the work of an objective journalist, which Daniel Gray is supposed to be doing, because he executes Black, White & Gray like a thriller series. The only feeling he puts in is the one that can be produced by any director with serviceable skills.

What's more, despite blending fiction with documentary (or vice versa), Sunil Mahabal doesn't really make anything noteworthy. Black, White & Gray is just a more dramatic version of those documentaries that combine talking heads with re-enactment scenes. It's also as superficial and laughable as those chintzy documentaries. Sunil Mahabal's approach, however, is being hailed as "aesthetically advanced," "visually inventive," and "groundbreaking." His style is merely flashy. Like Vikramaditya Motwane's CTRL, Black, White & Gray hides (or sells) a stale, conventional story through shiny tricks. The limitations of these films become apparent when you look at the thin characters, who are treated like chess pieces. They have no life beyond the boundaries of the screen. How did The Accused and The Girl become sexually involved with each other? How did they start their conversation, and how did they grow comfortable around one another, given that they belong to different worlds, circles, and families? And after being very careful with mobiles, isn't it weird that The Accused uses a phone to text his mother? Where did this dumb behavior come from? A man just came across The Accused and started filming him when he was putting a body in a car's trunk? After reaching Nepal, the Accused doesn't try to contact his friend, with whom he plans to start a business? At least, Daniel could have asked this last question, instead of boring you with lines like how he wanted to show another side of India to his audience. One suspects that Black, White & Gray is made for the foreign audience - the one who, after hearing the word "India," thinks about festivals and dance and music.

But wait for the end. Sunil Mahabal "fixes" the flaws I have mentioned through a shot that's just meant to...cover up the director's lack of imagination. Were you, like me, questioning the show's logic? Did you roll your eyes when a puppy somehow returned later in front of More's character? Did everything sound absurd to you for a long time? Fret not; Sunil Mahabal leaves a little breadcrumb for you at the end to explain the situation. The execution of this moment is so amateurish and its goal is so conspicuous that the show, for a few minutes, looks like a parody. It's a simple-minded surface-level trigger that forces a reaction out of the audience. It's pretty similar to all those twists you see in an Abbas–Mustan film or something like Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins. The difference is that the twists there serve as entertainment, and here, it desperately attempts to justify the presence of the word "Gray" in the title. My first reaction was to laugh at the director's double standards. He preaches that people have become addicted to serial killers; he preaches that the media generates lies 24/7. But what does he do here? He gives us a serial killer story; he sells us a lie with sensational embellishments. It's like attacking a loud, foolish journalist by being loud and foolish. It's like condemning violence through a film that's packed with exhilarating violent sequences.

That final shot will give rise to many think pieces, and critics can have fun decoding the show's "intelligence." Black, White & Gray comes prepackaged with (obvious) points that could give people a lot of opportunity to comment about the current Indian landscape, making them feel smart, responsible, and bright. No wonder it has garnered so much acclaim. As far as its "aesthetics" are concerned, both the documentary and the fiction parts are shot conventionally (one consists of talking heads while the other is packed with blank characters). Sunil Mahabal is simply being praised for combining two mediocre things. Watch Don Palathara's Everything Is Cinema to see how the boundaries of fiction and documentary can be blurred stunningly to advance the art of storytelling and aesthetics. All the positive reception around Black, White & Gray, however, reveals more about the state of Indian film criticism than the series. A film critic in India sits through so much nonsense that something that merely appears competent, serviceable, or superficially different from the crowd is magnified through an exultant lens. The cries of pleasure are so dazzling that no one notices they're celebrating something full of mediocrity.

Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times