Bombay cinema’s mapping impulse: Location, suspense and atmosphere

Abstract

This article examines the use of locations in a cross-section of contemporary Bombay films. The complicated workings of various kinds of production infrastructures typically shape cinema’s topographical motivations and sense of scale. Through a comparative analysis of films shot in and around Bombay with a film shot in a location outside India, I establish how the aesthetic drives of vertical, horizontal and atmospheric urbanism have generated a cartographic diversity in the cinematic imagination of contemporary India. The focus is on suspense films and their creative use of location shooting to invoke physical and psychological expressions of space. These are small-budget films where scale and navigational possibilities are managed carefully. In Anurag Kashyap’s Ugly (2013), the hunt for a kidnapped child unveils a gritty urban terrain and the failed dreams of its damaged protagonists. Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped (2016) showcases the slow breakdown of a man who inadvertently gets locked into an apartment on the 35th floor of an empty, half-constructed, high-rise building with no electricity, food or water. Unlike Ugly and Trapped, which speak to Bombay’s constant play with feelings of desperation and survival, Badla (2019) transports us to the cold, wintry landscape of Scotland to create an atmosphere for a psychological exposition of crime and revenge.