The joyful spirit of India and Bollywood isn’t a natural fit for film noir, but one Tamil-language classic, Sundaram Balachander’s Andha Naal, with its murder investigation and eschewal of songs, fits the bill for open-minded noir fans. Jawar Sitaraman stars as police officer Sivanandam, who is leading the investigation into the murder of Rajan (Shivaji Ganesan), a successful radio engineer shot to death in his home by his own handgun the same night the city was bombed by the Japanese. With a minimum of five suspects, Sivanandam discovers, of course, that just about everyone close to Rajan had a clear motive, and the film enacts each theory as a hypothetical flashback, while the third act interestingly veers into a political narrative that serves to debate the merits and means of gaining independence for a nation “crippled by the British Empire.” (A portrait of Gandhi even takes center stage.) A cast highlight is S. Menaka as Hema, the victim’s short-fused, unstable sister-in-law who occasionally adopts a menacing Lady MacBeth persona (she’s even caught scrubbing a damned spot). Much of the film is set in daytime, but several scenes (a moonlit assignation, the discovery of the body) make use of thick shadows and dazzling back lights.