Netflix’s Kaala Paani review: An intriguing survival drama lifted by its setting

Ashutosh Gowariker plays the resident Lieutenant Governor in Kaala Paani, streaming on Netflix. (Screen grab)

In a scene from Netflix’s Kaala Paani, a schoolteacher asks his students to draw the ‘entire’ map of India. Most of them draw the large, rhombus-shaped landmass that we know at the back our mind. Only one student, however, remembers to draw a floating set of dots near the mainland’s southern tip. This, the teacher reminds us, is a part of the country that everyone fails to invoke even in matters of academia, let alone everyday conversations. What does love, crisis, corruption, identity and longing look like in a place that nobody knows, or truly seeks? What becomes of a place that only the visitor can articulate, and the resident, in a tribal sense, only hope to outlive? Kaala Paani is an engaging, at times disjointed survival thriller that successfully contextualizes a place and a people through the lens of an unprecedented health crisis.

Set in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Kaala Paani – the name given to the famous cellular jail in Port Blair in pre-Independence India – traces the chaotic spread of a deadly health epidemic on the islands. A mysterious disease that gives people inky rashes on their necks, a brutal cough and sudden eventual death is quietly taking hold. Though there are patients and symptoms, only one doctor, played by the remarkable Mona Singh, seems to want to investigate the cause. Simultaneously, the islands are playing host to a large cultural festival, the front for something sinister put together by a wealthy corporate firm named Atom. As the outbreak begins to branch out, panic spreads, paranoia grips nerves in a way that feels far too familiar in a post-Covid world. The administration scrambles to control the spread, the scientists mobilize to hunt for a cure and history and personal reckonings await those who simply inch towards survival at any cost. It’s a catastrophe told through several threads, helmed by some decent performances.

Other than Mona Singh, Ashutosh Gowariker plays the resident LG (Lieutenant Governor), with the kind of controlled smirk that conveys both wisdom and the intuitive ability to see what is about to unfold. We are repeatedly told that if the islands were to sound the call for disaster-level aid, the first thing the mainland would do is cut them off. It’s precisely what injects that novelty into a premise we’ve probably seen in some way or form before. The notion of being invisible surmounted by the cataclysm of also being hapless. To add that tint of intimacy to the show’s pandemic-like hysteria of people gunning for freedom, breaking protocols and violently rebelling against punitive measures, there are a host of characters holding down the fort. There is the corrupt taxi driver and the reluctant family he is trying to con, the former nurse who must find her feet in the face of unprecedented crises (plural), and a twisted police officer who considers the islands as purgatory for something more rewarding on the other side.

Mona Singh in Kaala Pani (Screen grab/YouTube/Netflix)

Directed by Sameer Saxena and Amit Golani, Kaala Paani is ambitious in a way that few streaming stories are. It wants to commentate on identity, the plunder of our natural resources, the burdens of over-tourism, the inherent corruption within our bureaucracy and the tender balance indigenous people continue to maintain with nature. It’s a whole lot to pack into one seven-episode season, which is why the show can at times feels overstuffed, indulgent to the point that it begins to mimic vastness without actually grounding it in something biotic. There is a historical aspect to the mystery of the disease here that though well-intentioned, feels more contrived than crafted. Furthermore, the appearance of a self-serious, myth-buster who lives out of an old Japanese bunker contradicts the demystifying design of the rest of the series. It feels oddly misplaced in a show that can at times botch the marriage between cultural comment and the creative enthusiasm trying to power it.

That said, Kaala Paani is well-directed and commands some affecting performances. Singh is brilliant as the lone ranger on the lookout. Sukant Goel steals the scenery as the slippery taxi driver with a conflicted interior, while Amey Wagh is adept as the embittered cop who sports menace like a streak of makeup. Visually, the show manages to immerse you without eroticising the very land it is also trying to deconstruct. The struggle to fit the pace of its dreary outline to the contemplative struggles of its many protagonists can feel jarring at times, but they still convey contrasting aspects of a common struggle. A struggle that the show admirably re-contextualises in a post-pandemic world.

One of Kaala Paani’s most evident flaws is its lack of a clear protagonist. Instead, it offers the documentary-like feel of watching a bunch of interesting characters undergo a transcendental experience. But the fundamentals of storytelling demand a perch and not the table-top view of a catastrophe unfolding at a blinding pace. There is then this vague sense of vastness without that missing funnel at the heart of this world. Every draught feels like a wave, until it isn’t. It’s more of a collage than a comprehensive long-form piece, that feels far too scattered to convey that cogent, event-like momentousness. That said, not all of it is washed offshore as residue, for some of Kaala Paani’s keen observations, performances and sense of place stay fascinatingly at sea – full of life and verve.

Kaala Paani is streaming on Netflix.