Underground: the graceful dance of anarchy

I consider myself woefully inadequate to describe something like ‘Underground’. Let me first simply try to cough up an introduction. ‘Underground’ is a film by Emir Kusturica (pronounced rit-sa), from Serbia, that released in 1995. It is a story of two friends, Marko and Blacky and a few people around them, most notably Natalija, the girl wedged between the two friends. Nothing extraordinary, except the story starts in Yugoslavia in the year 1941.

The Axis powers have marched into Yugoslavia after bombing its various cities relentlessly. Against this backdrop, the story of these three characters is played out with the momentum of a hurled sandbag. The two friends are both members of the local Communist party which is just an excuse for them to indulge in looting and carrying out acts of anarchy. It also brings them into conflict with the ‘f***ing fascist mother*******’ (as Blacky calls them). Blacky, who resembles a pit-bull, both in physique and demeanour, is a man consumed by lust for war and revolution. Marko, more delicate and cunning, is a sensualist, who, as we see in an early scene, is quite literally turned on by the sound of bombs blowing his own city to bits.

Blacky has a shrew for a wife, Vera. She is pregnant, almost due. Blacky couldn’t care less for her; his considerable affections lie with a theatre actress Natalija, who, in turn, courts a hungry German admirer Franz, of the Gestapo that has recently taken command of the country. Oh yeah, and there’s also Marko’s stammering, naive, young brother Ivan, who runs a zoo, complete with a lion, a tiger ,an elephant and, most importantly, a chimp named Soni.

Only Soni sticks to Ivan after the bombing; the rest of the animals are either killed or run wild. They tag along with Marko after their houses have been destroyed. Also in the entourage are Vera and a few other relatives and friends. Marko’s wife has left him, presumably because of his whoring ways. They hide out in the basement of a distant relative of Marko, a Communist partisan. Blacky, meanwhile proceeds to “rescue” Natalija, from the clutches of “ze Germans”. In this process, he is captured, tortured and nearly killed, and is rescued, rather unlikely, by Marko.

Marko, then proceeds to put Blacky and his remaining family (Vera dies in childbirth, leaving him a son) in the same basement. Marko lets Blacky believe that Natalija is held captive with the fascists, while he sweeps her off her feet, with his silken tongue and promise of power.

So they continue, for twenty years, after the end of the World War, into the Cold War days. During this time, Marko has continuously kept them in the basement, letting them think it is still war. To reinforce the belief, he keeps playing a recorded alarm, jingoistic manifestos and sounds of bombs intermittently. The people “underground” manufacture arms in preparation for the great war that they believe continues, awaiting Marko’s orders. Marko, meanwhile, takes those arms and sells them for obscene amounts of money.

The story looks unbelievable on paper, and even more so, on screen. Kusturica has some extremely strong points to make, and I doubt he could have made them more strongly. It is difficult to describe the movie. It has scenes of such dazzling, absurd ingenuity that we are exhilarated even as we question our own sanity in appreciating it. It is a satire in the sense that it laughs savagely at its characters and makes us laugh with it, while hauling them over the coals. It is an epic in that it spans over fifty years, several events and characters, revealing countless emotions and moods. It is political, without taking sides. It is an allegory because every character represents something broader in the real world. It has scenes of war, of destruction of both a nation and its people.

Each individual scene is a miniature of the whole film, in that sense. Towards the middle, when we are familiar with the setting and backgrounds of the characters, each scene makes us laugh, feel sick, angry and plain weird, all at the same time.

The mise-en-scene is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on screen. It is chaotic; that’s the first impression one gets. Things seem to happen on screen of their own accord, there is no deliberation, no external control over them. Yet, they play out in perfect rhythm, precariously balanced, yet unfailingly steering away from caricature. It is self-organising behaviour, incarnate. The people on screen verily seem to dance, or sway to some music, unheard by us, the viewers, and yet we can very well see they are not dancing. Neither does it look choreographed. It is the underlying order of anarchy. The camera moves too. It is not static, as if it is some passive bystander observing the madness with bemused detachment. Yet, it remains level-eyed and doesn’t spin out of control, as it is surrounded by the madness.

The film would have had about half the effect, were it not for its music. Most of it is shown to be played by the omnipresent brass band and it is just as such: shrill, cacophonous, unruly, yet managing to render a song or a tune accurately enough for people to revel in. There is ample use of folk music along with a few songs of national fervour to repeated sardonic effect.

Explaining the subtext of this film would defeat its very purpose. Even though, it is set in a very specific place and period of world history, (which I admit is not the most widely known), I feel it is universal. It only makes it all the more important to be seen. One need not educate oneself specially about the history of Yugoslavia since World War II to understand or fully experience this film. In fact, it is better experienced ‘cold’ as they say. It is a measure of its power that the film made me read up the history of Yugoslavia during the Cold War and after it. After reading the actual history, my admiration for the film simply grew.

Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are three splinters of the original Yugoslavia, a country that has suffered unspeakable violence over several years. As I learn from the three movies that I’ve seen from those lands, it is such violence that can be understood only if it is felt, not even imagined, by most outsiders. All three films vary widely in content and tone. One is, of course, ‘Underground’. The others are Danis Tanovic’s ‘No Man’s Land’ and Srdjan Spasojevic’s ‘A Serbian Film’.

All three films try to encapsulate an idea of what it is like to be surrounded by such violence. By violence, I don’t just mean physical violence, but all forms of it. ‘A Serbian Film’ tries to present a visceral and literal account of such violence in its unflinching depiction of....well.... the unspeakable. Watching it would make one literally sick, I suppose, but that is the purpose.

‘No Man’s Land’ tries to present how frustratingly complex a seemingly simple problem can be. Its simplicity knocked the wind out of me. It simply takes two men in a deadlock, lying in the middle of a war, with a mine under one of them in a ditch, that belongs to no country, and hence, paradoxically, to every country and watches as they are strangled by nothing but international relations and talks and their own jangled nerves.

What does ‘Underground’ try to present to us? I feel it tries to convey a sense of absurdity and incongruity caused by monstrous betrayal, the perverse humour of bearing unendurable pain. There is a scene that perfectly mirrors this: Marko, after coaxing Natalija to lie to Blacky that she had been tortured for years in a German camp, is attending the wedding of Blacky’s son Jovan. All of them are still in the basement. Blacky is overjoyed to find his long-lost love just before his son’s wedding. Marko plays the gallant friend who rescues Natalija from the camps, to perfection.

Even though she has been seduced by Marko for twenty years, and has casually, passively connived to keep Blacky and many others underground for 20 years, she is disgusted at having to lie to their faces. Most of all, she is disgusted at how easily Marko continues to lie. In drunken abandon, she climbs atop a tank (built wholly underground by Blacky and his comrades) and straddles its ten foot long gun with orgasmic bliss. Later, sitting at a table beside Marko, she drinks glass after glass of brandy and gin. Marko tries to stop her, but she replies that she cannot bear to look at him while sober. All this while, she is dancing in her seat, her face twisted into ecstatic glee at the music. Marko, too, seems to enjoy himself fully. They segue into cursing each other and each other’s parents venomously, all the while swaying and swinging to the rambunctious music. In an earlier scene, as Marko first courts Natalija, she almost swoons into his arms whispering “Marko, you lie so beautifully”, as they proceed to make love even as the ceiling plaster crumbles down onto them at the sound of bombs (this time by the Allies). The film overflows with such scenes and even more.

For some weird reason, this movie evoked a memory long buried in my mind. As it came back fully, I relished the memory more than ever before. It was one of the cartoons that were shown along with the Mickey and Donald series, the Silly Symphony ones. It was an unusual one because it featured Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie and all the usual Silly Symphony characters like the cows, pigs and other barn animals. It showed Mickey as the conductor of a barn symphony featuring all the barn animals and Donald as an ice-cream seller who happens to come by when they are playing a piece. Towards the end, there is a typhoon, a literal whirlwind that comes and blows them all away. Everyone sees it coming, except Mickey who continues conducting. The symphony continues to play perfectly even as they are being blown around in the storm. It was an outrageously funny piece, the sight of an uncommonly grim Mickey vehemently conducting the terrorised barn animals into hitting the perfect note, even as they are blown head over heels into the eye of the storm.

Such is Kusturica's skill, that as the three drunk “friends”, Marko, Blacky and Natalija sing, with their heads in a tight circle,

“Is it moonlight at noon?

Is it sunshine at midnight?

From the skies above, light is beaming

Nobody knows, nobody knows

What is really shining.”,

we understand them perfectly.

Of Ray and his tryst with Hindi cinema and me

Depending directly on my frequency of watching movies, my mother’s reaction to it ranges from mild disapproval to grave concern and helpless anxiety over my imminent future. The relationship between the two variables, as it were, is almost as exact as a law of physics. It would have been a law of physics had it not been for a certain Mr. Ray, whose impact upon my life and that of my mother, I am now about to discuss.

That Satyajit Ray was an exception in the world of cinema was beside the point for me when I was first exposed to him. The point then was the way my mother introduced me to him and his work. All her anxiety, all her dire predictions of my dark future would simply vanish and be replaced by a sweet compliance, no, hearty encouragement whenever a film by Ray was around. For the longest time, I failed to understand this volte-face. I was told that my mother had taken me to a movie hall to watch ‘Goopy Bagha Phire Elo’ (Goopy and Bagha Return), by Ray. I was all of two years then, with a known predilection for punching and kicking, especially when held in one place for a long time. I leave you to imagine the effect the two hours inside that dark hall with those blinding images and terrible, booming sounds, had on me. I have been told that my mother during those two hours was not even carrying me. No, it was my poor grandmother who bore the literal brunt, while my mother sat in rapt attention to the onscreen goings-on. Later, my grandmother jokingly told me that she had missed almost half the movie on my account. I did not laugh. I was mildly stunned by my mother’s ardour for Ray’s movies. Like I said, whatever he was in the wide world of cinema, did not matter to me then; I simply knew he was an exception in our little world.

I have, very rarely, needed to be convinced to watch a movie. Most often, I have people trying to convince me of the exact opposite. One of the biggest ironies in my life, till date, would be my mother trying to make me watch ‘Shonar Kella’ (The Golden Fort), another of Ray’s movies, when I was about 14. I had already seen it once when I was really young. I could not recall much of it, except that I didn’t quite like it. Attributing my failure to be impressed by it to my being ‘too young’ the first time, she was sure I would love it the second time. Almost bullied by her, I sat down to watch it. This time, I followed the story better, indeed, followed it fully, but failed, once again, to see what was so remarkable about it, except that it had a little boy who said he could remember his past life, in an earlier incarnation. After the movie ended, I couldn’t help but ask her what she so loved in the movie. Even as I asked her that question, I remember being slightly scared of disappointing her. On the contrary, she was absolutely imperturbable when she said,” Why, its realism, of course!” I was stumped. I wasn’t expecting it. I did not know what it meant. And worse, when I asked my mother to explain it, she couldn’t, either. ‘Too young’, was all she said.

Why am I writing all this here? For the simple reason that these were the thoughts that coursed through my head as I watched Satyajit Ray’s solo Hindi offering ‘Shatranj Ke Khilari’, a few days back. It is based on a short story of the same name by Munshi Premchand. The name sounds very pulpy Bollywood, especially today. It is just as deceptive.

Ray’s only Hindi film marshalled some of the best talent in Hindi cinema, apart from his usual crew. It had Sanjeev Kumar, probably the finest mainstream Hindi actor of that time, Saeed Jaffrey (O Master, where art thou?) Shabana Azmi, Victor Banerjee, Farida Jalal, Farooque Shaikh, Tom Alter and Amjad ‘Gabbar’ Khan. It also had a pre-Gandhi Sir Richard Attenborough, although a very accomplished actor on the British stage and in film, even then.

The opening shot is perfectly symbolic of all that follows. It is a simple shot of an array of ornately designed chess pieces arranged mid-game on a chess board, just waiting to be played. The way Ray captures the pieces is what makes the shot so attractive: he shoots it not from any one side, but perpendicular to both the players, objectively capturing both sides. And he shoots it from exactly the level the pieces are kept, so that we see them straight before our eyes. He holds this shot for a few seconds. We expect it is simply a still image, (the background is pitch-black) when to our surprise, a refined, ring-laden hand daintily picks up one of the chess-pieces to make a move, crossing out a piece of his opponent. It is then that we realise what the shot truly signifies: it is the way the players have blocked out everything else from their consciousness. Immediately, an all-too-recognisable voice-over kicks in. Dripping with unctuous irony, it asks us to note the ponderous manner in which the players hold the pieces. It’s almost as if they are strategising about going to war. Except, it is not war. There will neither be rivers of blood, nor conquests of heads and hearts, nor will the fortunes of kingdoms and their subjects change. It is simply a game and the players simply want to ride the horses of wisdom.

It is this same, apparent parallel between chess and war, between love for the throne and actual governance that is explored very interestingly in the film. It consists of two different stories, not really connected to each other, except through similarity and the fact that both are set in the royalty of Avadh, just before the 1857 uprising.

The first story, as is introduced to us, is about Mirza Sajjad Ali (Sanjeev Kumar) and Mir Roshan Ali (Saeed Jaffrey), two wealthy landlords in Avadh, with an undying passion for the game. Mirza’s wife (Shabana Azmi) is filled with yearning for him. But he is so completely addicted to the game and especially playing against Mir, that he almost forgets her. In a fit of petulance, she sends for him, making an excuse of a splitting headache that forces Mirza to abandon his game halfway and rush to her. Her vexation is only matched by his own, at being forced to leave a game he is close to winning. He acidly observes, that when he spends entire nights at ‘mujras’, she doesn’t make as much as a whimper, but when he’s just playing a game in his own house, she has a damn headache. So worried is he, that before leaving the game, he warns Mir not to change the positions of the pieces in his absence.

His meeting with his wife, brief as it is, is perennially clouded over by the itching desire to return to the game as well as paranoia over Mir’s probable chicanery. After a few forced, perfunctory words of sweetness, he returns to the game with relief, leaving her more frustrated than ever. Meanwhile, Mir’s foxy impulses get the better of him and seeing no one around, he makes a few of his own changes to the game.

Mir, as we later, see has even bigger problems in his personal life than Mirza. He spends entire days playing chess with Mirza at the latter’s house. Unbeknownst to him, his wife (Farida Jalal), facing neglect and boredom has started having affairs with several men around town, the point of rendezvous being Mir’s own house. But Mir is blissfully oblivious of such details, lost as he is in the world of pawns and kings. Mirza later hears these rumours about Mir’s wife through the common people and is shocked, but in a salacious way and, while forbidding him to stop spreading such malicious rumours, secretly takes pleasure at Mir’s misfortune and at his own relatively better luck.

One day Mir enters Mirza’s house only to find him furiously berating the servants for having lost the chess pieces. Forced to think of alternatives, they eventually zero in on an old advocate’s house that has an ancient, ornate chess board with marble pieces. Upon reaching his house with the intention of borrowing it for a day, they find that he is unwell and partly unconscious. Nevertheless, they are asked to wait and are seated in the hall by the servants at the very table bearing the precious chessboard. Unable to resist themselves, they surreptitiously start playing, keeping a sharp eye for any lurking servants. To their absolute chagrin, a servant arrives, bearing a tray with glasses of milk, and moves the chessboard to another table to make place for the tray. It is a wickedly comic scene, and Ray has a ball showing us his characters in a series of similar misfortunes ending in a darkly comic twist.

At the end of that episode it is clear that the advocate’s house is not at all suitable for their game. By that time, Mirza hits upon the idea of using different vegetables in place of chess pieces and equipped with the brainwave returns triumphantly to his own home. But by another humorous quirk of fate (or human nature), they are forced to think of another place to play. Mirza finally asks Mir whether his house would be fine. Mir readily agrees.

This arrangement disrupts his wife’s routine of meeting her paramour while Mir is away. She is trapped with no way of letting her paramour know that her husband is at home, that too with a guest. Eventually, he does arrive and enters, as usual, through the back door straight into Mir’s bedroom. His reaction, when informed of Mir and Mirza’s presence, is one of unruffled calm. They are playing chess, he observes, and with an open chessmat and pieces before them, they are blind to everything else. Mir’s wife agrees without a second thought.

Indeed, so sedated is Mir by chess, that when he catches his wife with the other man (Farooque Shaikh) in his own bedroom, he is mildly nonplussed. He naively asks the man (who happens to be a distant nephew, no less!) what he is doing there, only to be told a cock-and-bull story about hiding from the Nawab’s army that is forcefully recruiting soldiers to fight against the English army being assembled at Kanpur. He buys it fully and in a fit of nervous worry runs to Mirza and declares his house to be unsafe and that they should move to yet another location to play chess. Mirza is befuddled at first, but when Mir tells him of his nephew’s predicament, he sees through the whole ruse and starts laughing uncontrollably at his hapless friend. Mir, none the wiser, hatches a plan to travel outside the city to a ruined mosque where they can play for the entire day without any disturbance. They would take mattresses, chess pieces and mat, tobacco and paan with them. Mirza, darkly adds that they would have to take some sort of weapons too, for those who roam around unarmed in Nawab Wajid Ali Shah’s kingdom do not return home.

Meanwhile, there are ominous signs of the East India Company preparing to take over the state of Avadh. The uneasy relationship between the Company and the princely states is depicted by an animation sequence, whose mere presence is unbelievable for its time, especially in Hindi cinema. It is intentionally jerky and very cartoonish, to underline the absurd humour in the dealings between the states and the Company. The states enamoured by the presence of foreigners and foreign money were eager to please them by trading with them. Ultimately, the Company grew so powerful as to go to war with them, defeat them and gobble them up like so many cherries. The rulers of the states were literally caught napping and had no choice but to hand over their territories in return for their honour. Indeed, all these rulers wanted was the honour, glory and splendour of their forefathers, even if their lands were taken away from them. The English merely had to approach the Indian rulers with a minor quibble for them to be readily placated by the Indian rulers with a piece of their own kingdoms.

The film explores this dynamic in utmost detail, through the story of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (Amjad Khan), the ruler of Avadh. Lord Dalhousie, the then-Viceroy has his sights on Avadh, one of the few cherries waiting to be gobbled. The Nawab’s reputation as an effete sensualist and incompetent ruler precedes him in the British circles. General Outram (Richard Attenborough) is handed the task of driving out Wajid and annexing Avadh. He is flabbergasted at first at what is obviously a thankless job, but even more so at the nature of the King. The scene in which he slowly acquaints himself with the King’s seemingly eccentric ways (400 concubines, dancing with bells on his feet, composing operas) with the help of a British officer Weston (Tom Alter) defines the clash of the cultures and their politics of that age. It is elevated to comic perfection by Attenborough’s bug-eyed, dumbfounded and ultimately enraged demeanour and Tom Alter’s progressively uncomfortable reaction to it. Just watch Tom Alter reciting one of the Nawab’s shayaris, at Outram’s behest, in chaste Urdu and then translating it in English to Outram’s bewilderment. All Outram can do is attribute the shayari with the sole ‘virtue of brevity’.

But even Outram for all his dislike for the King has his misgivings. He is aware of the fact the British are not completely justified in trying to oust the Nawab. The reason being the annulment of an age-old treaty that promised him protection from annexation that his forefathers had signed with the British. The Nawab has been conveniently forgotten to be informed about this annulment by the British. What the British are doing is essentially taking advantage of his ignorance and deceitfully stripping him of his title and his own kingdom and appropriating the entire revenue of Avadh. The Viceroy has no qualms about using such subterfuge. But Outram is hard pressed to execute his orders in the face of such monstrous deception. Nevertheless, he must go ahead with his bounden duty, even in the face of a plaintive complaint by the Nawab’s Vazir (Victor Banerjee), a tearful beseechment by the Queen mother and a pale shadow of a resistance by the Nawab himself.

It is through the Nawab’s reaction to this news that Ray explores the concepts of governance, loyalty, the contentment of subjects, apathy, tradition, heritage and, most importantly, power and greed. The Nawab, as if waking up from a deep slumber, notices, for the first time, that maybe, what he thought as acceptance by his subjects was merely a passive apathy and occasional flattery. The Nawab was widely believed to be a great patron of the arts, especially the dance form ‘kathak’, and all forms of music and poetry. As he is accused by the Viceroy, of incompetence and generally engendering discontent among his subjects, and is in danger of losing not only his kingdom, but also his title, all he can do is reproach his entourage of yes-men who stood by, filling their own coffers and let such disorder creep in. After he has blown out all his anger, he lapses wistfully into memories of the halcyon days of light, music, sublime poetry and beautiful women. He eventually accepts he has been a poor ruler, but then defiantly questions his subjects as to why they never said a word of protest or complaint against him. And then he answers himself by saying that his subjects love him despite everything, love him for his love of song and dance. How many of Queen Victoria’s subjects celebrate by singing her songs, he asks pointedly.

Amjad Khan’s nine minute long monologue throws up very intriguing questions about the nature of feudal rule. For instance, does feudal rule allow for effective dialogue between the ruler and the ruled? What is the importance of such dialogue vis-a-vis the welfare of the state? Was the anti-British sentiment a product of the Indian patriotism or simply the fear of being subjected to rulers who were different from those who had ruled over them for thousands of years? Or did the masses really care? Ray gives us a definite answer to the last question in the form of the two eponymous ‘Shatranj ke Khilari’, the chess players, who for all their sharp intelligence, view the annexation of their own kingdom with brief, bemused detachment. Were they representative of the sentiments of the people at large? Perhaps, at the end, when Mir wryly quips ‘those who cannot control their own wives, how can they face the English army?’, we understand his sentiments and the reasons the British could and did overthrow the Nawab in a completely bloodless coup. For a kingdom of people who spent their time by deriving vicarious pleasure from cock-fights, while their Nawab disported with 'nautch' girls, this was, perhaps inevitable.

These stories may not possess the instant gratification of say a historical romance or an epic, but they portray India in a ‘period of historical change’, as Martin Scorsese said in his introduction to this film, at a Ray retrospective in Washington, D.C. The film is remarkable because it shows us people in the actual act of experiencing a change, letting go of what they have held onto for centuries in favour of something completely new. In that sense, it is a rarity. Another aspect of it that makes it a rare gem, is the amount of ironic, subversively satirical wit it contains. Or simply, the sheer amount of meaning and thought it manages to accomodate within its 129 minutes.

I’m no authority on that period, but Bansi Chandragupta’s art direction is simply astounding. For instance, take a look at the chess pieces themselves, or the royal throne of the Nawab, or the way the high lamps of the royal households are lit, or the way a bunch of paans are suspended by golden chains.

The Urdu in the film is honey for the ears. Not for once was I flustered upon hearing words I didn’t understand (and there were many). It is simply a joy to listen to these words being enunciated impeccably, with all their minute inflections, by such master actors. The dialogues were written by Satyajit Ray, Shama Zaidi and Javed Siddiqui. I suspect Ray to have written the English dialogues which form a substantial part of the film’s screenplay. While I am a diehard fan of his Bengali writing, I had never really experienced his writing in English. It is just as virtuoso. To write well in English is one thing, but to write in such a way as to evoke the days of the English East India Company, especially in a film, at the service of a script based on actual events is a task worthy of a master. And they are delivered with metronomic precision by Attenborough in his polished accent (with a touch of Northern England).

To say anything about the performances in this film, or indeed any Ray film, is a disservice to them. I am not qualified enough to comment on them. To say that they fully embody the truth of the moment will suffice.

What do I feel after watching this film especially with regard to my mother’s remarks about realism? At least I understand her better now, if not completely. Perhaps I’m still too young. But one thing is for sure, I cannot get ‘Shatranj ke Khilari’ out of my head, the way I could with ‘Shonar Kella’, the first time I saw it. I feel better for that.

And, yeah, I recently discovered that ‘Goopy Bagha Phire Elo’ was not directed by Satyajit Ray. It was directed by his son Sandip Ray. When I asked my mother if she knew this, she nonchalantly said yes.

Atonement: Souls in the pages of history

Being a sceptic helps. On the one hand, it steels you against trash whose egregiousness you underestimate and, on the other, it leaves you defenceless against experiences so transcendentally powerful, that you curse your own scepticism. Yet, the feeling of being so profoundly affected by such an experience is so greatly enriched by this initial scepticism that I am almost grateful for it. It’s like what salt does to a sweet-dish, like what the moon does to the sun and its corona in case of a partial solar eclipse. I intend to keep my scepticism alive. I might as well state the reasons for my scepticism about ‘Atonement’:

1. 1. 1. Keira Knightley

2. The director, whose previous, and first, film was an umpteenth adaptation of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, something I’d disliked since school, and positively loathed after seeing what it inspired in Gurinder Chaddha.

3. . 3. It was touted as a story of star-crossed lovers separated by war, a sure-fire excuse for maudlin excess.

‘Atonement’ opens in a palatial house in the English countryside. Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), the youngest in the household, in her early teens, has just finished writing her first play on a typewriter. We see her almost running around the house with the thrill of her accomplishment and the apprehension of how it will be received. The scullery maids are indulgent but unenthusiastic in their approval. So is Robbie (James McAvoy), the young son of the elderly housekeeper. The first real words of encouragement come from her mother who declares it to be “stupendous”. It is interesting to note that she doesn’t approach her elder sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley). When she even as much as voices her anxieties about the play, Cecilia, rather dismissively, says, “I’m sure it’s a masterpiece”. The irony in her voice is lost on Briony: she is simply too young to get it. She does, however sense something is not quite right between Cecilia and Robbie. Again, when she voices it, Cecilia brushes it off carelessly. What she cannot brush off is Briony’s persistent curiosity about the two of them. These seemingly regular episodes of life are, actually, very crucial to how the story plays out later. It provides a sense of the various relationships in the household and offers an insight into Briony’s mind and how it works.

The Tallis household has guests from North England in the form of Briony’s cousins: pudgy, red- and tousle-haired twin boys, about ten, and their equally red-haired, older sister, Lola, slightly older than Briony. They have been sent there on account of their parents’ separation after their mother allegedly “ran away with a Mr. Whatshisname” (another one of Cecilia’s tart observations).

We find that Briony has written the play on the occasion of the arrival of Leon, their oldest brother, presumably, after a long period away from home. He brings along a friend named Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberbatch), heir to a family well-known for their chocolates.

One hot, languid summer day, Briony, from her bedroom window, overlooking the sprawling lawns of the estate, sees Robbie and Cecilia by the fountain. She sees Cecilia taking off her clothes and jump into the fountain pool in only her thin underclothes, with Robbie standing by. A few moments later, Cecilia emerges dripping wet, her underclothes almost blending into her pale skin as she stands shivering under the resplendent summer sun in full view of Robbie. This vision has a strongly disquieting effect on Briony’s mind, already full of curiosity about them.

It has an equally powerful effect on Robbie and Cecilia, although the two effects could not be more different. We see the same episode through their eyes. They have a squabble in which they end up pulling at opposite handles of a priceless vase that Cecilia was carrying. Robbie breaks one of the handles and a large splinter falls into the pool. Cecilia retrieves it, and in doing so, inadvertently reveals herself before Robbie in more ways than one. That one moment draws out buried emotions and sentiments from both of them and brings them to light in their own and each other’s eyes, crystallising them into something permanent, something palpable, something inevitable and, thus, uncontrollable. They are helpless in efforts to understand and check the sluice of untamed passion. Shame is not the least emotion here, given that it is the upper class English society of the early 20^th century.

Robbie, despite his embarrassment, cannot stop thinking about Cecilia and, in his reverie, types several drafts of letters, giving form to his deepest desires, his most rapturous fantasies. But they scarcely bring him peace. He decides to write a final, formal letter explaining everything, including his own feelings, to Cecilia and hand it to her at the dinner party at the Tallis household to which he has been invited by Leon. While on his way across the fields, Robbie sees Briony playing and asks her to act as his courier and deliver his letter to Cecilia. Briony blandly agrees. As he sees her run away on her errand, Robbie, in a startling moment of epiphany, realises that he has handed the wrong, inappropriate letter to Briony. His paroxysmal scream of “Briony” is futile and echoes emptily over the rolling fields over as Briony races to her destination. She does deliver it to Cecilia, but not before her own unhealthy curiosity gets the better of her. The results are devastating. Briony is shocked beyond belief at what she thinks is sheer depravity on Robbie’s part. It affects her so deeply that she is filled with fear and hatred against him. So much so, that, in the tragic chain events that occur later that night, it is Briony who serves as a witness, and deposes before the police that Robbie is the perpetrator. His highly personal letter to Cecilia, also produced by Briony before her family members does nothing to help his case. A witness she was: she did see the perpetrator in flagrante delicto, just before he fled. But whether she recognised and identified him in the dark is not quite certain. She is unsure of herself and it is only by tremulously confirming her unnamed suspicions with the victim (who is also unsure), and her own coloured opinion of Robbie that she thinks she is certain about him being the perpetrator.

All this, of course, comes after Cecilia has confronted Robbie with the knowledge of his feelings for her and the fact that Briony has read the letter. Robbie is penitent, Cecilia is vexed, but they declare their unending love for each other despite themselves.

Their togetherness is cut short, as Robbie is convicted of the crime and hauled off by the police.

Thus, the lives of all three of the characters, Robbie, Cecilia and Briony are irrevocably changed.

If it still comes across as too mawkish and melodramatic, that is entirely my fault. Academy Award winner Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel is so lean, it reminds me of venison. And in the hands of young director Joe Wright, it leaps and prances with the serous grace of a gazelle.

Where do I start? How do I even begin to describe Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography which for the first hour evokes the idyllic and utopian vision of the England of Enid Blyton I had since my earliest years? Those images of the still, picturesque heather-covered meadows with their blossoms, people basking in lyrically diffused sunlight, talking leisurely about writing plays, composing poems about woods and brooks and having ices, maids in the scullery stocking up the larder for high teas and feasts at night transported me completely to my childhood imaginings in which I would lose myself. Equally masterful is his depiction of wartime London as observed in the vast, sterilised corridors of its hospitals, overflowing with the casualties of war and the cobbled streets crawling with soldiers and anxious civilians.

But I simply cannot fail to mention the legendary tracking shot of the Dunkirk beach. In just over five minutes, it shows us thousands of lives laid bare, the innumerable repercussions war has on men, and the effect of all this on Robbie. It is one of the most powerfully moving scenes I’ve ever seen on film. It is a virtuoso stand-alone piece that is a movie by itself, a movie that has to be seen to be convinced of its truth.

The score by Dario Marianelli and the haunting piano by Jean-Yves Thibaudet is the stuff of legendary, sweeping epics. Indeed, it is the score which gives the movie its sweep, its grandiosity and its empathetic proximity to the human condition. The music in the tracking shot of Dunkirk elevates it beyond the reach of words, into the realm of pure, instinctive emotion. The use of the flat, slapping sound of the typewriter as percussion is sheer inspired, lunatic genius. Briony’s theme music, to which this piece of percussion is set, is labyrinthine, dizzyingly operatic and weirdly unsettling.

Keira Knightley, in this movie, went from being one of the reasons for my scepticism to one of the reasons I love the British accent (some other reasons being Tom Wilkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Mark Strong). She plays Cecilia as almost a shrew, at the beginning, whose facade of frosty curtness later crumbles pitifully into a vortex of passion and endless longing for Robbie. And, man, with her coldly piercing glare, strident body language and diction that sounds like bullets pinging off metal, she is scary good at it.

James McAvoy, who was bloody impressive in ‘The Last King of Scotland’ comes into his own fully here. Portraying the earnestness and promise of youth and deep love at the start, it is he who later serves both as the eyes and the mirror to the utter destruction wreaked on the soul by war. Yet, it is his soulful eyes that keep the flame of love alight against all odds. In a single scene towards the end, he offers us a virtuoso display of powerhouse acting that induces gooseflesh.

Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave. It took these three formidable actresses to portray Briony Tallis, the bedrock on which this entire saga rests. It is a mark of my ignorance that I wasn’t familiar with either of them, before this movie. Saoirse Ronan’s Briony is an uncommonly precocious young girl. Looking at her, one senses the level of quick intuition and cold, prim intelligence she projects far beyond her years. But it is this extreme intuition coupled with the lack of mature insight and her adolescent turmoil that leads her to her fatal folly of judgement, in a sense. An enormously complex role played with blinding clarity by Saoirse Ronan. Her casting is so perfect that she is the physical embodiment of her character: pale, willowy, with a long, straight, open face bearing divinely curved, aquamarine eyes so clear, they seem transparent to her very soul, and ending with thin, pursed lips and a dainty, pointed chin. Add to that the deliberately severe, just-about-lady-like haircut that accentuates her sharp features with an austere starkness.

Romola Garai plays Briony in her most harrowing phase, both professional and personal. Joining St. Thomas’s Hospital, London as a trainee nurse in the darkest hour of England, she is forced to confront the very worst of human suffering. Yet, she goes about her job with a clenched dignity, masking her utter revulsion and horror. For it is but penance for her, a means to atone or maybe escape from the horror of her own guilt, as it lies heavy on her like never before, in those most hellish of days. Garai has, probably, the most crucial scene in the film, the fulcrum on which the entire saga is hinged, the prism through which the reality of the film is viewed at the end. As a young woman, not too far from her childhood, growing up to fully grasp the implications and ramifications of a childhood act borne out of naivete and misunderstanding, at a time when childhood had to be smothered before its time, she aptly mirrors the feelings of denial, the passive horror of someone who wished she was just an innocent bystander, the journey through the endless tunnel of guilt, the slow coming-to-terms with her own guilt and, finally, the mustering-up of courage to make amends. She is a marvel. If I have waxed so eloquent about Romola Garai, it is entirely her doing.

Vanessa Redgrave has the scene of the final resolution. It is here that this epic reaches its absolute peak in terms of almost everything: narrative, acting, music, direction, editing. The ending is tricky, (maybe too slight a word to describe it, beguiling would be more apt) and this is where Wright’s virtuoso direction surpasses itself. With sentences so eloquent, they could only have been taken from the novel, and a performance so sublime, it could only be worshipped, Vanessa Redgrave, in a mere five minutes makes me weep. Not just out of grief, but out of her (and our) love and passion for the characters, the characters’ love for each other, and the wondrous, transformative power of words, of stories, of imagination.

Brick: ‘ Film Noir’ resurrected

‘Brick’ opens with static shots of the shoes of a man on his haunches, followed by a lingering close-up of his eyes staring through glasses. Soon enough, we see what he’s been looking at: a girl lying face-down, unmoving beside a small channel of water that laps at the ends of her golden hair and her dainty, bangled hands. These images are captured with the care and absorption of a fetishist, soaked in the beauty of her person caressed by water flowing gently as well as the pathos of her passing.

The guy, we learn, is Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Informed by a caption that reads “two days previous” (not ‘earlier’, mind you, nor ‘ago’, but ‘previous’), we see Brendan receiving a note bearing the address of a street crossing and a certain time. It is a deserted crossing with only a telephone booth in sight. As Brendan waits at the designated spot, he hears the telephone in the booth ring. He picks it up to find it is a female named Emily who was presumably his ex. Emily has a minor breakdown on the phone and tells Brendan that she “screwed up”. Her speech is rambling, panicky, she uses words like ‘brick’, ‘pin’, ‘tug’ that don’t make any sense to Brendan. Just as she is about to explain things more clearly to Brendan, a black Mustang whizzes by, coinciding with Emily dropping the line in a burst of terror. A half-burnt cigarette is tossed out of the car.

Brendan takes it upon himself to track down Emily and help her with her problems. In his quest, he is aided by his friend simply called ‘Brain’.

The setting for such an engaging intrigue is rather unlikely: a high school. But as the story unfolds we see that it is perfect. Brendan’s enquiries lead him to meet Kara (Megan Good), a staggeringly sultry vixen, who spends time at the high school theatre and has freshmen eating out of her hands. Brendan’s history with her is hinted at. From her, he gains entry into an exclusive house party where he meets the hostess, Laura (Nora Zehetner) and her supposedly macho boyfriend, Brad, a huge black school football champ with an even larger ego and temper. Other characters in this yarn are Tug, a thug with a hair-trigger temper and unending appetite for violence and Dode, a pathetic, snivelling pothead, who Emily is currently with.

Brain tells Brendan about the “upper crust”, an exclusive clique of spoilt, rich kids who indulge in nefarious activities, that include drug dealing, around town and use secret channels of communication to get by without raising suspicion. One of their biggest suppliers is someone known as ‘The Pin’, who is one of those local legends only a chosen few have seen. Emily was rumoured to be last seen with them. He also manages to meet Emily and begs her to let him help her. But she tearfully refuses and says that she is beyond his reach and makes him promise he would not torture himself over her. This is just a day before she is found dead. The rest of the movie follows Brendan trying to plumb this arcane network and find out the truth about Emily’s death.

Now that I’m done with the formality of sketching out the basic premise, let me dive joyfully into the many virtues of this astonishing film. Rian Johnson, in his debut feature, pays a loving ode to film noir. Setting it in a high school is an innovative masterstroke. It does seem mildly frivolous at first, the thought of high school brats, still in their teens, running around trying to double cross each other. And just how chilling, twisted and menacing could it be? Johnson shows us and how!

He takes the usual high school concerns of messy relationships with all their love and lust, heartbreak, peer pressure, ego, insecurity, the desire for acceptance, temptation, addiction, strips them of all frivolity and cheesiness, and crafts a moody, angst-ridden piece that stays with you long after you’re through watching it.

The characters are devious and twisted and all the more chilling since we know they are mere teenagers. Johnson uses his high school setting to his great advantage. They speak in the glib, coolly irreverent, piquant lingo of the hardboiled novels of Hammett and Chandler and make every word of dialogue their own.

The cinematography is stylised in such a controlled and deliberate way, it is mesmerising. It captures the vast empty spaces of Southern California, as a wilderness of meadows and concrete, with perpetually grey skies as metaphors for the melancholia of the lead characters. In that respect, as well as the recurring presence of a water canal, it bears similarities with ‘Chinatown’, one of the best noir films ever. The way the director frames his images is beautiful. I happened to come across a collection of still, random images taken from the film. They are wonderfully symmetrical and poised. The images are sharply drawn, the use of light and shade, so crucial and essential to noir, is handled dextrously. The scenes towards the end, in the Pin’s lair should explain what I mean.

The movie is all atmosphere and ambience, created by the camera, the sharp sound design and, most of all, the incredibly haunting score. Right from the opening scenes, the languidly pensive strains of a guitar complementing the chilly, yet pleasing chimes of a metallophone create a sense of foreboding tinged with sadness. The trumpet, indispensable to noir, kicks in at the right time to convey the sense of barely suppressed emotion and shocking disclosure.

The females in Johnson’s world are creatures of exquisite beauty and guile. They are driven by love, lust and greed for money and social standing. They would, without batting an eyelid, readily sacrifice those in their power to achieve their own ends. It’s not the first time we have seen such characters, but their utterly convincing portrayals elevate them way above the ordinary.

I cannot comment on the performances without revealing the characters which, in this case, would be a crime. Just suffice it to say that, after watching them here, I am bewitched by Nora Zehetner and Megan Good. However, I cannot help but speak about a couple of them. This is one of the earliest adult performances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who had previously been a prolific child actor. He fully embodies the spirit of the noir hero, brooding, smooth, yet rugged, with a murky past, blasé, immune to the charms of the numerous femme fatales, yet vulnerable and ultimately devastated. Much like the movie, despite his extremely boyish looks, he projects a kind of a stiff authority and commands our attention. Before he did ‘Inception’ and ‘GI Joe’, before he was signed on for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, he did such fiercely independent and vastly interesting movies like ‘Manic’, ‘Mysterious Skin’, this one, and the inimitable ‘(500) days of Summer’. It speaks volumes about his courage and maturity. A word about Lukas Haas without revealing what he plays. He is simply magnetic. His unusual looks, coupled with his sense of style and characterisation make it impossible for us to tear our eyes away from him.

All its merits apart, what’s most inspiring is the fact that Rian Johnson made his debut feature on a budget of $475,000, borrowing money from his friends and family. And pulled off such a beauty. Little wonder, then, that it won the 2005 Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the Sundance Film Festival.

Powder: Flower Power for Indian Television

It took me the better part of eight years to fully understand what a’ paradigm’ was. I first encountered the word in ‘Jurassic Park’ (the novel) and was rather enamoured by it. It seemed full of promise, as a sufficiently esoteric word to be used in writing. There was a hitch, though: I did not fully understand what it meant. Despite the succinct explanation provided by the omniscient Michael Crichton, I was confused when it did not quite match its English dictionary meaning. At least, not in my head. Of course, I later understood that the subtle difference in meaning between the two sources was due to the difference in contexts: one scientific, one literary. In the former context, it means a model on which certain fundamental notions are based. In the latter, it means a perfect example. It is, of course more commonly used as a ‘paradigm shift’ i.e. a fundamental change in a model which changes the way we look and think about certain things. For instance, Copernicus’ hypothesis, followed by Kepler’s laws rubbished the erstwhile model of the earth being the centre of the universe, and is responsible for the way we view our solar system today: the sun at the centre surrounded by the planets. This was a classic paradigm shift for science. The reason paradigm shifts occur every few years is that new data obtained from experiments cannot be explained on the basis of existing models or paradigms anymore. Hence the need for new ones.

‘Powder’, I feel, is a classic paradigm shift for Indian television, both contexts considered.

At the outset, it was billed as a story of a group of Narcotics Control Bureau officers and their war against drug smuggling led by a kingpin, set in Mumbai. It seemed a classic good versus evil, us against them, kind of a story, complete with a dashing daredevil guy, a comely, gun-toting girl, the old, wise mentor, all officers (a fact that lent a certain legitimate, exhilarating piquancy to the proceedings) and a sinister villain to boot. Or so I thought. We are introduced to NCB officers Usmaan (Manish Choudhary), Mahendra (Rahul Bagga), Brinda (Geetika Tyagi) and the shadowy drug lord, Naaved Ansari (Pankaj Tripathi). What follows now is the result of what I saw unfold over the next 26 weeks with my own eyes. If it is excessive, it is simply a measure of the impact this show has had on me. I have just tried to provide a fitting response to what it has done to me.

Firstly, it is rare to see a work of such humaneness, especially on Indian television. It empathises equally with each and every one of its characters, irrespective of their legal and ethical underpinnings. In fact, the characters are frequently driven by their needs to tread both a legal and a moral morass. For instance, when Usmaan orders his officers to go out on the field and make seizures and arrests (solely to fill files and build records), Brinda immediately seeks out one of informers, a eunuch living beside railway tracks. The eunuch tips Brinda off about one of her kindred possessing a large stash of ganja. Brinda asks how much it would be. The eunuch naively asks her how much she would like to seize. Brinda uncomfortably replies that she would have to seize all of it. The eunuch pleads her not to as they would lose their livelihood (they double up as ganja sellers at night). Brinda pushes a thin wad of notes into her hand, and in a series of quickly-cut shots, barges into a hut, arresting its occupant and seizing all the ganja. The scene ends with a shot of Brinda’s informer on a foot overbridge, framed against the sky, looking down upon the drug bust with a cryptic smile. Both Brinda and her informer are driven by sheer need, as this scene clearly establishes, and it is this vulnerability that makes them so human. Brinda needs to fill record books and please her superiors, the eunuch and her clan simply need to survive and be on the right side of the law enforcers, even if they are on the wrong side of the law.

What is more startling is the way each and every one of the countless stories narrated, has an undertone of quiet melancholy amidst the chaos. The most poignant of them is perhaps that of Anuj’s informer, who, when asked to carry out an errand, breaks down to reveal that he has contracted AIDS, a result of his ‘smack’ addiction. Anuj’s reaction seems a bit unlikely at first: he slaps him out of sheer vexation and sympathy for his condition, and then provides him some money and, in gesture of genuine warmth, feeds him from his own plate. He even spares him the errand, but the informer insists on running it. But it is only later we realise. It isn’t a revelation; rather, in the quiet way it is depicted, almost an insight: the feeling of guilt that wracks Anuj as he sees his informer of four years walking away on what would probably be his last errand, a forlorn figure, into the night. The guilt that stems from Anuj’s role in a symbiotic relationship with the informer, a money-for-information barter, Anuj’s money fuelling the informer’s addiction, ultimately destroying his life. Brinda counters Anuj, reminding him that he had warned the informer about the dangers of using unclean needles. Anuj wryly replies that to think that the addict heeded his warning was akin to self-deception.

The background score by Vipin Mishra is a heady cocktail of bassy lounge, violin symphonies, electronica, all topped by an ominous foghorn that blends trippily into the lounge bits. The music pieces accompanying Ansari on screen are appropriately chilling, sharp and penetrating. In tandem with the extremely competent, controlled photography (N. Kartik Ganesh, reminiscent, at times, of the inimitable Wally Pfister), it creates a series of absolutely hypnotic images that are pure visual and aural pleasure. The camera is so tightly controlled it looks unflinchingly at every detail on-screen. There’s nothing really explicit on screen, but it is the tightness with which the camera looks at everything that is draining at times. N. Karthik’s greenish-yellow lighting of the interrogation rooms is enough to lend it starkness, it doesn’t need any bulb hanging in the dark. Similarly, the lighting and set decor (featuring a deep brown, elegantly finished, yet austerely regal throne) of Ansari’s den gives it a spartan, surreal, inner-sanctum kind of a feel.

A Mumbai resident of over 2 decades notwithstanding, the camera goes to places I could scarcely imagine to have existed in Mumbai; rather, places we choose not to imagine, even as we pass them by, in the all-pervading local trains. Yet the beauty lies in the fact that we can intuitively identify it as quintessential Mumbai. Nothing but. The ghettoes built around the docks, the ramshackle ruins housing goods and active trade worth millions of dollars, the sense of attrition in the slums arising out of unhealthy proximity, the presence of self-organising networks amidst the chaos of tortuous, esoteric by-lanes, the architectural juxtaposition of baffling incongruity, all whisperingly caressed by the ubiquitous local trains, such sights are endemic to Mumbai.

The dialogues speak to a form of Hindi forgotten of late in Hindi language content on TV and in film. They are seamlessly organic, terse, yet complex (not to be mistaken as complicated), penetrating, and with a clear sense of context to the story, as a whole. This last attribute is no mean feat, considering the story unfolds over 26 episodes each with a running time of roughly 50 minutes. Bose’s dialogue with Brinda towards the end is a case in point. He effectively sums up the reasons and motivations behind the entire drama, in the matter of a few seconds.

With this kind of subject matter at hand, one could easily give in to the temptation of writing acid-dipped, profane, hard-hitting diatribes in the vein of Vishal Bhardwaj and Anurag Kashyap (not that I’m belittling their dialogue-writing). In contrast, Mr. Sabharwal’s dialogues are gracefully poised and symmetrical, even in their most intense forms of usage. Mumbai street lingo, the ‘tehzeeb’ (etiquette) of a traditional Muslim household, drug deals, complex machinations of power ranging from the highest political circles to the street-level hierarchy, as well as the mechanics and economics of drug trade, the techniques of converting ‘black’ money to ‘white’, interrogations, face-offs, double-crosses, forensic reports, politics, finance, authentic dialogue in Arabic, Nigerian and Chinese, are all worded with equal dexterity. The characters, even when threatening each other seem to respect each other as individuals, if not as equals, absurd as that may sound. No profanities at all, except in a couple of cases.

A case in point being the scene in which Naaved, before leaving for an unknown destination, entrusts the complete responsibility of managing the trade on Wasim, his younger brother. The dialogue and its delivery by Pankaj Tripathi and Amitosh Nagpal is so exact, it touches deeper notes, evokes deeper implications about the inseparable intertwining of business with family, about trust that is built not just on love, but darker emotions. The consequences of breaking such a trust are more than just loss of love, there is so much more at stake. The gravitas that the actors lend to this scene (that is essentially just one explaining the locations of the godowns and smuggled goods) makes it unforgettable.

Another scene past compare is the one in which Dayal, Ansari’s counsel tells him about Jagdale’s offer to trade information with him about the NCB-SIU investigation for money. Jagdale is an Anti-Narcotics Cell officer, a seemingly bitter rival of NCB and its officers. Wasim drops in on their conversation in the middle and Naaved prompts him to narrate a novel business proposal to Dayal. Wasim’s proposal is to create an exchange based on “fluctuating” cocaine prices. Being the prime dealers in the drug in Mumbai, they plan to control the cocaine prices and thus earn money off this venture. Dayal is so impressed that he wordlessly hands Wasim his business card. Seeing this, Naaved explains Wasim the true import of that act. Naaved produces another of Dayal’s business cards, one given to him by Dayal the first time he ever offered Naaved his services. He has preserved it carefully, even though the details on the card have long changed; he has preserved it as an heirloom, a token of a relationship treasured above all else. Wasim is visibly moved and, to hide his emotions, excuses himself to go back to work. While just at the door, he is told by Naaved that he, Wasim, may handle the entire delivery of a drug consignment all by himself and that he does not need to ask or tell Naaved anything about it. It is the first time that Naaved has bestowed the entire responsibility of a delivery on Wasim. He has finally come of age in the eyes of his idol, his own elder brother. Wasim is so overcome with emotion that he simply goes to his wife and shares a few silent moments with her.

The narrative is as much driven by plot as by the characters, again something not seen very often. In fact, the plot is so attuned to its characters that the narrative seems entirely character-driven at times. Take, for instance, Brinda’s moment of indiscretion in Delhi before a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officer. Brinda’s character, at that juncture, is that of a rookie officer, unsure of herself in her dealings with an officer of a rival agency, yet tempted by the lure of vital information and gullible enough to be led into meeting the DRI officer by her fellow NCB officer. So what ensues is a narrative development whereby Brinda reveals Ansari’s name to a DRI officer, (in return for what she feels is vital information) to introduce DRI into Ansari’s case and, hence, the narrative. It seems perfectly in sync with Brinda’s vulnerability at that point but, in fact, is a very well-disguised plot device to introduce DRI into the narrative. The director beautifully sets up her character to prevent this device from coming off as a kind of a reverse deus ex machina, to thicken the plot.

The performances, bar none, are expositions of subtlety and nuance. With this work, Atul Sabharwal has, probably irrevocably, altered my taste for the pitch and tone of dramatic acting. Indeed for the better. All, and I repeat, all the actors invest their portrayals with just enough form as to make the viewer feel the contours of their characters underneath the garb of performance in a very nearly tactile way. It is aided, of course, by Mr. Sabharwal’s photographic characterization. Allow me to present a few examples from the herd.

The first is Javed Khan’s portrayal of the retired, small-town lawyer Siddiqui. Javed Khan has played a host of bumbling side roles in the early 90’s, most notably in ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ and ‘Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi’, and recently, a more dignified one in ‘Chak De India’. Here he plays a character that has echoes in Om Prakash’s role in ‘Zanjeer’, a man so hell-bent on eradicating a form of addiction from society, he doesn’t care which side of the law he is on, doesn’t care if he destroys himself in the process. The entire goal of Siddiqui’s existence is to destroy drug-trafficking networks and gangs, rather than, just seize drugs. The first lesson that he gives Brinda in his office in Bhilwara challenges all that she has been taught to do. It leaves her stunned. The power of that scene is ineffable. It has to be simply experienced. Javed Khan imbues such forceful authority in his laboured speech, it’s almost like a prophet admonishing a wayward follower. He stuns Brinda even more when he reveals his near-insane habit of making heroin purchases just to plumb the various local trafficking networks. He plays Siddiqui with an all-consuming zeal underneath his haggard form, a child-like stubbornness and a dangerous optimism bordering on the insane, as someone for whom no price is too great to fulfil his desire. His encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the drug trade, of narcotics laws, of the workings of smuggling networks, and, more importantly, the unorthodox way he uses this treasure-trove of knowledge to beat the smugglers at their own game, his consternation at the recent state of law enforcement, his empathy for the hapless ignorance of the poppy farmers, his is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve seen on screen. His authoritative narrative account of the Opium wars and of the flourishing of Bombay and Calcutta due to opium trade gives me gooseflesh, for some unknown reason.

Next up is Maneesh Verma’s riveting turn as DRI officer Ashwini Khanna. His opening dialogue with his senior contains some of the driest wit around. He is put on the Ansari case by his senior, who, in the same brilliantly penned sequence, makes it clear to Ashwini the difference between a target (Ansari) and an enemy (Usmaan). Usmaan had in the past filed a case against DRI for picking on a suspect who happened to be Usmaan’s informer. We learn that Ashwini’s smarting from an all-too-recent divorce, highly educated, and nursing a terribly bruised ego. The combined forces of DRI’s age-old rivalry with NCB, especially his boss’s personal grudge against Usmaan, the desire to redeem himself in his own eyes and assuage his ego, drive him to work on the case like a man possessed. Just watch his first scene with the comely forensic expert Dr. Lal. When he explains the various stages of drug smuggling vis-a-vis the working of DRI, and provides the much-married Dr. Lal wisdom about marriage and its pitfalls, and wishes that he had met her earlier to her face, in the same goddamn breath, we are left stunned not only by his character and his portrayal, but also by the dexterity of the writing. Later, he goes a step further and tells her that if he were having an affair with her, he would want to her husband to know it, just to make him feel the pain. He unabashedly tells her that his divorce has greatly improved his interrogation skills and that he loves watching people in pain and distress. Dr. Lal is naturally repulsed by his sheer audacity and cruelty. Yet she is attracted by his disarming candour and passion. As are we, the viewers. A truly clenched act by Maneesh Verma. He almost seems to chew and spit words out of his mouth with a bitter sardony at the world he thinks is unfairly happier than him.

Which leaves Naaved Ansari, played by Pankaj Tripathi.

This is one of those all-too-rare instances when a character is created almost entirely by the one enacting it. Naaved Ansari, as a character on paper, in my humble opinion, may not be so remarkable, considering he is the chief antagonist of this saga. Yes, he is a drug smuggler; but his approach to the drug trade is as dispassionate as that of an ordinary businessman. As Usmaan once says, neither Ansari nor any of his family members goes anywhere within a mile of the drugs that he sells. No flashy clothing or glamorous lifestyle.

Yes, he even has a tightly knit family, unquestioningly loyal to him, despite knowing what he does. Beyond that, he has an organisation so intricate and labyrinthine, that he alone knows it inside out. But as a character, he remains enigmatic, shadowy. He has a past filled with violent coups and double-crossings in his rise from the docks to a businessman with an apparently clean record. But it does not seem to weigh down on him at all. Most of his conflicts in the story are entirely business-driven. He is as normal as any average businessman except for what he deals in.

Yet, for the time that Pankaj Tripathi is on-screen, he OWNS it, the way a virtuoso owns the stage. He portrays such depth that a mere nod or some half-formed noise in his gullet, contains a world of meaning, and often, menace. Thoughts seem to flit across his mind creating flickers across his face. Consider the scene in which he interrogates Selva, about the goods that were stolen from his godown by Raghav, Selva’s boss and Ansari’s bitter rival. Again, the camera and lighting create a subterranean environment for the interrogation. The only outlet is a distant doorway of blinding light framed against which is the crooked silhouette of Raja, leaning on his stick. Ansari simply questions him twice about his goods. Selva feigns ignorance. Ansari, with a slight smile playing on his lips, asks Selva rhetorically: “Tujhe kya lagta hai, mujhe pata nahi chalega Raghav ne mere maal ka ek bhi gram bazaar mein utaara to?” (Do you think I wouldn’t know if Raghav sells even a gram of my substance in the market?) The smile vanishes in an instant from his face. In the next scene a corpse is found floating in the Mahim creek. It is Selva’s.

The only time when Ansari’s iron-knit mantle is well and truly shattered is when his godown is robbed by Raghav. This tarnishes his record and denigrates him before his superiors in Dubai, who, as a result, consider him to be incapable of managing the trade in Mumbai from Dubai, and tell him so. Ansari, who, presumably, had put a lot on the line to achieve his dream of settling down in Dubai and managing the entire drug trade eastwards of Africa, is apoplectic with rage and frustration. The scene where he locks himself up in his room and starts hyperventilating, while convulsively shoving a magazine in and out of a pistol, before finally erupting in an animal snarl, is unbelievable even as we watch it.

But the crowning glory for me is his first face-off with Usmaan over a cup of tea in a roadside cafe. The plot and the mise-en-scene leading upto the confrontation is so masterful, the actors are so goddamn precise, the dialogue is so fittingly natural, this is where this piece of work reaches its zenith. As four NCB officers and one ANC officer converge upon him in the cafe, all Naaved Ansari does is calmly sip tea. He doesn’t even as much as look at them even though they continue to stare at him, aghast to see him in person. Or at Usmaan as he slowly walks up to him. The fact that Ansari knows Usmaan is already there and walking up to him, yet acts as if he is unaware of it, until the exact instant that Usmaan sits at his table facing him, is conveyed to the viewers ever so subtly, yet surely, by Pankaj Tripathi that he has become one of my favourite actors since. He almost seems to be meditating on the workings of fate as he faces his nemesis. It elevates the scene to a trance-like state.

Manish Chaudhary finally gets a role worthy of his prodigious talent. There is no dearth of actors playing conflicted characters. But very few actors can portray their inner conflict in a way so crystal clear that they seem to share their angst with viewers. The more external and obvious of Usmaan’s struggles is with Ansari. But it is his internal struggle that he reveals mostly without words: his struggle to control his impulses that urge him to go beyond the law for fear of inspiring similar behaviour among those under him; his struggle to control his own latent ego and sense of self-worth in the presence of younger officers; his struggle with the bureaucracy within the various law-enforcement agencies; his struggle to come to terms with the intra- and inter-departmental politics, the extent to which people are willing to go to achieve their ends and the sheer lack of ethics not only in the drug trade but also in combating it. Atul Sabharwal provides him neither with fire-and-brimstone monologues nor thunderous action scenes (unless we count the scene towards the end, when he’s past his tipping point and, kind of, goes berserk on a lowly drug dealer). As Usmaan, the old warhorse, the main driving force of the resistance, as it were, against Naaved Ansari, all Manish Chaudhary has is his uncanny ability to manifest every thought in his character’s head with his face, voice and person. And we feel the complete charge. A scene that uniquely illumines his inner turmoil is the one when he and Kartik manage to nab Khalid.

That is not to say the other actors are inferior in any way. Geetika Tyagi, Rahul Bagga, Subrat Dutta, Amitosh Nagpal, Rishi Prasad are all flawless. The actors playing Kartik, Raja, Jagdale, Julie, Rati, Shiven, Dayal, Khalid and each and every one of the other parts (I regret not knowing their names) are all perfect.

Atul Sabharwal has created a kaleidoscopic tapestry of countless, indelible colours, each of which is perfectly illumined, has a distinct purpose and leaves a definite impression upon the viewer. For this feat, we have his editor, Irene Dhar Malik to thank, in no small measure. Coalescing over 1000 minutes of continuously shot footage featuring a gamut of emotions, moods, locations, characters, subplots and details into a seamlessly consistent, coherent narrative singlehandedly is a herculean task and boy, oh boy, does she pull it off! To put it into perspective, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy was edited by five different editors to produce the extended DVD cut that lasted 683 minutes. The total running time of the theatrical versions of the three films put together was about 2 hours shorter.

In a rare print interview, Atul Sabharwal said he started his research on this subject since 2001 and put the script together over eight years of research. The only thing more remarkable than this fact is his decision to make it into a TV series instead of a film. Given the precipitous fall of the quality of TV programming to depths that have consistently amazed us over the last ten years, his decision gives us, hapless viewers, hope, like nothing else. The fact that his decision was backed by Yash Raj Films, whose quality graph over the same period has been somewhat similar, is poetic in its symmetry.

And what a backing it is! Actual locations spread over three countries, the ganja plantations of Chamba, the poppy fields of Madhya Pradesh and the Govt. opium factory in Rajasthan, not the least of these; warehouses, ghettoes, the interiors of actual offices, courts, nightclubs; the detailing behind the look of the characters, their wardrobes, patois, accents, inflections all reek of authenticity. Every inch of this epic production has been handled with marvellous, meticulous care that shows.

But all of this would still not have counted for as much as it does, were it not for the inherent sincerity and maturity of the story and narrative. It is populated with characters with a strong work ethic. There is very little attempt, unlike other similar ventures in the past, to glamourise or romanticise crime or the work of law enforcement agencies. By relying more on adherence to procedure than wilfully eschewing it for the thrill of flouting rulebooks, it breaks new ground and serves as a benchmark for other works in similar territory. In fact, it shows what the consequences of circumventing office bureaucracy are, even with the best of intentions, right at the start when Brinda is punished by her superior for (prematurely) issuing a summons against a chemicals firm with “no regard for the paperwork.”   

A sizeable proportion of the conflict in the story is entirely work-related. It is not simply about the one-upmanship between co-workers, but also about the relationships between superiors and their subordinates, between officers of rival organisations who are forced to work together by a common target, the struggle to maintain a strictly professional interest in a case that has become too personal for comfort and the insidious ways in which cases take over the lives, sleeping and waking hours of those solving them.

When people around me first heard about this show, it evoked rather predictable responses that were mostly age-based. The elderly age-group, closer to God and Aastha channel, yet worldly enough to watch at least three daily soaps without fail, were downright dismissive of what they thought was a serial that was ostensibly anti-drugs, about the underworld, corrupt policemen and violence and, hence, generally dark, but one that would eventually glamorise drugs and everything else mentioned above, and thus be a negative influence on the impressionable youth.

The middle aged working group of people were dismissive too, but in their own dispassionate, detached and busy way: they simply did not think it exceptional enough to feature in their bursting schedule.

The young generation hooked onto American and British TV, fiercely contemptuous of any Indian serial (apart from those on MTV), simply did not think this one serial featuring mostly newcomers (no known names, not even known TV faces, heavens!) would match their lofty tastes for authenticity and thrill.

Most of them did not end up watching the serial at all. Those that grudgingly did had their preconceived notions challenged at every step. They could not believe their eyes that a serial about cops and the underworld would have such little physical violence and so much dialogue that kept them pondering long after it had been uttered. They could not believe the fact that nobody screamed or even as much as raised their voice while speaking. They could not believe that they actually had to work out the motivations of the characters and that there were multiple motivations, not just a single one. Most of all, they could not believe that a serial on Indian television could be made responsibly and that it could respect the audience.

I now regret to say that I was one of those incredulous pig-heads initially, not for long, before the dormant proselyte in me awoke.

As I watched it episode by episode, ‘Powder’ continued to give me hope. And now, after having seen it completely, it continues to give me faith. Which, looking at its creator, are pretty much the only things we need to create something magical.