There is no dearth of narrators in Black, White & Gray – Love Kills, directed by Pushkar Mahabal. A rich girl, a politician’s daughter at that, and a poor boy, his driver’s son sneak out of their homes to go to a shady hotel. Their intent is clear and their fate isn’t difficult to guess. A night-out plan turns dark in an instant and they’re on the ‘run’ (in a way). But this isn’t where the story begins.
The story opens with a shopkeeper by the side of a highway recounting his version of events of an unsolved crime – a serial killer from Nagpur, termed the ‘desi serial killer’, is accused of killing 4 people and is still on the run.
Several interviews follow – a disgruntled police officer becoming increasingly agitated by the second, a female constable with an unexplained injury, family members of the victims, the accused parents, a hitman, and the girl’s best friend who seems to have more faith in the accused that everyone else on the list. And finally, there’s the accused, sitting in a rundown house in an unnamed location, gearing to tell his side of the story.
None of these narrators are reliable, not because they act in particularly shady ways – in fact, everyone seems to be telling what they believe to be true or even if they are lying, they seem to be convinced of the necessity of the lie. They’re all subjects of a documentary being put together by an independent British journalist named Daniel Gray who poses a simple question during his opening shot – ‘When you think of India, what do you imagine?’ The six-part series turns into a whodunit with that question at its focus, without ever bringing it up again till the very end. But it widens the scope of the story – the show isn’t just about a ‘boy’ and a ‘girl’ who become ‘accused’ and ‘victim’ at the drop of a hat.
It’s the story of how conversations happen – how even human perception can be subjective, falling victim to things like confirmation bias. Black, White & Gray is a story within a story that still doesn’t play out in the conventionally linear sense – it’s a fictional creation of a non-fiction format (a mockumentary, if you would) which then turns to fictional recreations of the story we’re being told. It sounds confusing in words and is absolutely electric on screen.
None of the words in ‘true crime documentary’ lend itself to ‘fiction’ – in fact, every part of that phrase hints at something ‘real’ but that’s just semantics. The true crime genre is as much about being ‘engaging’ and dramatised as it is about telling a story – the audio stings (think dramatic, intense instrumentals that build to a crescendo) are familiar and the show uses these expectations to turn the format over on its head. So it isn’t as bothersome as it would be if it wasn’t clearly subversive. So when the otherwise somber tone shifts to a pulpy, catchy title track, it’s jarring in how perfectly it fits into the narrative intentions.
There are two ‘parts’ of the show – one is the ‘documentary’ and the other is the recreations. There is a clear tonal difference between the two. It’s a show buoyed by its craft. The music is a blend of classic true crime podcast atmosphere-setting build-ups and funky detours into ‘catchy’ territory. The visual language is sublime – the old-timey documentary footage, the unclear ‘archival’ videos, all work well.
The dramatised parts almost play out like a show, the music is more inventive, sometimes bordering on corny. The lighting is brighter; everyone is playing a ‘character’ in the true, cinematic sense of the word. But then the show cuts to the talking heads, the actors playing the ‘real people’ in the show and everything is quieter and yet, somehow more charged. The distance between the real and the fictional is one of the most arresting attempts in recent memory.
For instance, the hitman in question is played by Deven Bhojani in the recreations and by Vinod Wanikar in ‘real life’. The latter is a man in flesh and blood, the writing doing enough to create the idea of a ‘person’ with layers but the former is a caricature. He exists in memory; his character is built by the narrators. This is true for almost every character on screen and this dissonance works primarily because every single person cast for the show is pitch-perfect.
The story flows so well, barring a few segues it takes into critiquing the media (points well-made are let down by an inconsistent execution), that you barely notice that the ‘leads’ – the ‘boy’ and the ‘girl’ remain unnamed throughout. It’s an effective and smart tool because the absence of their names works in more ways than one in the show’s attempt at socio-political commentary. The class divide between the couple is obvious but the names are left out, their identities could be slotted into any number of combinations and each time the answer would remain the same – the differences in their social statuses means that they would become easy fodder for a narrative of hate.
“Are you making a political statement?” Gray asks for behind the camera and you can see the subject physically backtrack – it’s a conversation he isn’t willing to have.
Their names eventually cease to matter even to the people in the mockumentary. They are reduced to byte-sized tropes for public and media consumption – the tropes themselves affected by this consumption, creating a never-ending, devastating loop. That is when the chill sets in – it’s the acknowledgement of a bleak reality we all inhabit. The show quickly becomes a cultural investigation – it doesn’t quite matter whose version of events you believe, what matters is the unfortunate picture that is painted of our society as a whole when you realise that any of them could be speaking the truth.
“A girl like her would never do this” is said minutes after “this is how boys like him act” – the burden of his social reality mixes with hers. She is too virtuous, too ‘pure’ to want and have sexual agency, he is too ‘suspicious’ to be misunderstood. The media plays up these stereotypes, most of them don’t stop to check their bias, calling for rage and revenge in the same breath as they choke the nuance out of a story.
Everything is black and white because nuance isn’t palatable, nuance means that you must take a step back and think, and thought often leads to introspection. For many people, mostly those too privileged to be affected by the hate they peddle, this is too high a cost to pay.
There is far too much true crime content but sometimes, from the fog, a lone show arises that is as courageous as it is deftly handled. And despite its flaws (of which there are few), Black, White & Gray is that show. Even the choice of the man behind the lens is important – a British man telling a story in a place, time, and politics that he is an outsider to. The only time we don’t get to hear from someone is when they decline to be on camera.
His questions are measured, often only asking about suspected loopholes in a story. And yet, there is an empathy that seeps in as the story progresses – one that doesn’t whitewash a crime, one that claims it won’t take sides. In doing so, he manages to take the reins of the story away from the powerful and give it to those who their power affects. The camera becomes a spectator to violence in all its forms – ambiguous and explicit.
Towards the end of the show Gray asks a man, “Is that a threat?” An innocuous sentence becomes a threat because he sees what unchecked power can lead to. The man in front of him is threatening not because of something he is proved to have done but because of what he could have done.
The worst thing about the show is that it never seems too horrific to be true, especially at a time when threats of horrific violence exist in something as banal as comment sections and threads online. It’s harder to digest because it’s commonplace, anonymous to an extent. It’s danger that knits itself into the very fabric of society till it’s not something you can turn away from.
The camera keeps rolling, the narrators change, and the world keeps spinning.
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