(Spoilers ahead)
You know you are watching a Vishal Bhardwaj film when its characters are as twisted as the circumstances they find themselves in. Their morality is coloured in gray hues, their actions are questionable but even in all their monstrosity, these characters exude a charm that will have you secretly rooting for them. In addition to dark humour and rugged aesthetics, Vishal Bhardwaj’s films have a fascination with the macabre which has now become synonymous with the filmmaker’s signature style.
Last two weeks saw two OTT releases helmed by the writer-director — Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley on SonyLiv and Khufiya on Netflix. The former is the official adaptation of Agatha Christie’s classic The Sittaford Mystery while the latter is based on Amar Bhushan's espionage novel Escape to Nowhere. In both the show and the film, Bhardwaj plays with tropes commonly seen in his cinema while also experimenting with newer, unexplored themes.
The Common Link: Wamiqa Gabbi
The common link between the two titles is Wamiqa Gabbi. In Charlie Chopra…, she plays a cigar-sniffing, fourth wall-breaking sleuth who uses her intuitive abilities to bring to life an Agatha Christie murder mystery. In Khufiya, she trades her cigar for a joint and intuitive abilities for resilience as she plays a protective mother who breaks into an infectious dance routine when she is being spied on. In both Charlie Chopra… and Khufiya, Gabbi’s character chops off her hair when tragedy strikes and with a new hairdo, picks up broken pieces of herself to finish what she started.
In both the OTT show and the film, Gabbi plays a once full-of-life character who trades her innocence and childlike simplicity for vengeance and persistence after a catastrophic event. A telling scene in Khufiya shows Chaaru (Gabbi) make love with her husband Ravi (Ali Fazal), except it isn’t consensual — Chaaru wants to avenge her betrayal by Ravi and his mother, Sarita.
In a haunting sequence, as Ravi forces himself on Chaaru, her loud moans turn into an inaudible scream and a cry for help. A similar dynamic was seen between two other Vishal Bhardwaj characters in the 2006 film Omkara. Omkara (Ajay Devgn) smothers Dolly Mishra (Kareena Kapoor Khan) after he finds out the truth about her affair. In both scenes, Bhardwaj shows women losing their agency in a way that haunts the viewer for a long time. The depiction of crime against women in Bhardwaj’s films is far from sanitised; the filmmaker portrays the horrific crime in all its monstrosity without watering down its ghastliness.
Vishal Bhardwaj and dark humour
Macabre aside, in both Charlie Chopra… and Khufiya, Bhardwaj’s signature dark humour shines through the thick plot like sun through dark clouds. Much of this humour in Khufiya is courtesy Sarita, Ravi Gupta’s (Ali Fazal) mother in the film. Essayed by the effervescent Navnindra Behl, Sarita plays a key role in the India-America nexus and guides her son, Ravi, as he colludes with the CIA. She is menacing; at one point, she shoots her daughter-in-law in cold blood but being a true-blue Punjabi mother-in-law, on finding out that her daughter-in-law is alive, allows her into the family because she needs a maid in the US who can do bartan and jhaadu (do the dishes and clean the house).
Mind you, Sarita doesn’t trust the CIA or the Iranians in North Dakota but like any West Delhi mother, she has blind faith in her guruji’s satsang. The tongue-in-cheek banter between Ravi and Sarita is typical Vishal Bhardwaj humour, a comedy of terror oddly reminiscent of the twins in Haider who brought both comic relief and dread to the film.
In Charlie Chopra…, however, Bhardwaj relies solely on Gabbi’s fourth wall breaking for comic relief. Her brutally honest assessment of the odd situations she finds herself in, her witty comments on outlandish murder suspects and sometimes, a strategically timed look into the camera brings much-needed comic relief in a Fleabag-esque narrative.
The mystique: Roohdaar and Yaara ji
A theme common in Bhardwaj’s films is that of the mystique. The iconic Roohdaar in Haider, played by Irrfan Khan, is arguably the most memorable and impactful cameo roles in a Hindi film. With barely a few scenes, Roohdaar’s impact in the film was monumental in the context of Haider’s plot.
Similar to Roohdaar, Khufiya has another mystique, Yaara ji, who barely has a few scenes in the film but his impact is unprecedented. The anulom-vilom practising cult leader-cum-rock singer is far from the spiritual guide he projects himself to be. Like Roohdaar, his role is crucial in a film where there’s plenty double crossing and suspicious motives.
Keeping up with the times
With Charlie Chopra… and Khufiya, Bhardwaj has ventured into newer territories and themes he otherwise hadn’t explored in his cinema. In Khufiya, he creates Krishna Mehra (played by acting powerhouse Tabu) a queer woman who cannot muster the courage to reveal the truth about her sexual orientation to her adolescent son. Through the film, Krishna stays in denial about her identity until another espionage agent (Bangladeshi actress Azmeri Haque Badhon) encourages her to accept herself for who she is.
In Charlie Chopra…, we see Janki (Neena Gupta) confess that she murdered the murderer because she was denied maintenance by the father of her differently abled son. While Bhardwaj has, to a large extent, stayed true to his original syntax of filmmaking, he has also experimented with newer, fresher themes in his last OTT endeavours which are arguably more woke and progressive, perhaps tailor made to the present-day syntax.
The filmmaker has undoubtedly reinvented himself while also staying true to his cinematic roots. Is Vishal Bhardwaj 2.0 already in the making?
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