Kahaani (Sujoy Ghosh, 2012)

Vidya Bagchi, seven months pregnant, travels from London to Kolkata in search of her missing husband, Arnav Bagchi. Her journey begins at the Kalighat police station, where she meets Rana, a young, innocent police officer who sets his heart on helping Vidya. What starts out as a single woman’s search soon involves the police and the Central Bureau of Intelligence, all hunting a criminal mastermind, Milan Damji, who is inextricably linked with Arnav Bagchi. As higher-ranking officials get involved, the plot thickens and the stakes get higher, all while focusing on Vidya’s relentless search for the man she loves. Kahaani breaks the conventions of a thriller genre with an overwhelmingly cultural setting and a female lead, both of which contribute to a novel and exciting viewing experience.

Kahaani is not your everyday thriller. Unlike other Bollywood thrillers that often ape successful Hollywood movies, Kahaani is uniquely Indian in many ways, most obviously seen in the portrayal of Kolkata. Returning to West Bengal for a second time after his film Nobel Chor, Ghosh unravels Kolkata before your eyes in a breathtaking manner – the extensive use of a handheld camera that portrays the characters’ points of view gives the movie a realistic, documentary-like approach, allowing you to witness the wonders of walking through the streets of Kolkata just like everybody else. What is most refreshing about this immersive viewing experience is how Ghosh creates the verisimilitude of quintessential Kolkata to build the suspense of the thriller. The unsteady camera fosters a sense of instability and unease from the beginning, giving the viewer several glimpses into what the world looks like from Vidya’s point of view, a broken, hunted woman on a ghost trail in an unknown city. As the tension builds, so does the intensity of the city - vehicles’ noises get louder, incessantly shrill chanting and yelling abruptly interrupt dialogues, high speed car chases are replaced by the unbearably slow Kolkata crowds and traffic, making you sit tight in anticipation of what is to come. Ghosh completely reforms the “chase” - running through the narrow lanes of the city in amidst Kolkata’s mayhem at the time of Durgo pujo pulls all the excitement and adrenaline of the chase into an environment that is undeniably real to an Indian viewer. The intelligent choice of using Kolkata – a metropolis that also hosts one of the biggest religious events of the country – ensures that the authenticity of this thriller in a Bengali environment gets across to the viewer.

The star of this movie is unquestionably Vidya Balan, who plays the protagonist, Vidya Bagchi. With the heavy, unsteady walk of a pregnant woman and her innocent gaze, Vidya Bagchi’s vulnerability evokes sympathy in almost everyone she interacts with, who are then eager to help her in any way possible – giving her easy access to police records and company information that are integral to leading her to her husband. However, Bagchi is no ordinary mother. She is terrified yet bold, soft yet sharply perceptive and undefeated by anything thrown her way. Her character, at times, seems unnaturally in control of the situation – like when she is all too comfortable breaking into deserted offices at night, and is able to shoot a man dead with no previous shooting experience. However, this is contrasted by close-up shots of her crying alone in her bedroom, which highlight the torment she faces. Balan moves between vulnerable and powerful with subtle grace, never overpowering in her portrayal of Bagchi. She contrasts her clumsy body language with the sharpness of her tone and gaze, portraying the surprising grit of Vidya Bagchi. Balan’s moving performance highlights the indomitable attitude that Bagchi must adopt, borne out of a woman’s desperation, to survive and accomplish her mission in a male-dominated world.

Kahaani blatantly compares Vidya to Ma Durga: towards the climax, shots of Vidya are increasingly interspersed with those of goddess Durga’s sculptures, and people praying to her. To anyone who knows of the goddess, the comparison is clear: like Ma Durga, Vidya is the mother who has come to defeat the demons of this world and overthrow evil. Her symbolic donning of the white-and-red sari on the last day of Durgo pujo further enforces the character of Vidya as the female agent of justice in this patriarchal society. However, Vidya Bagchi also likes children, cries, longs for her husband and is emotionally shaken by her first kill. Thus, interestingly, Bagchi’s character doesn’t make a statement about the power of women by subverting every female stereotype there is, but by standing up to the men who undermine her within the comfortable spaces of femininity and motherhood, reasserting the power that a woman can wield while still being feminine in her own right. In this respect, Kahaani is an integral marker in the modern rise of the evolved, female protagonist and power of female actresses in the Bollywood industry.

Although Balan steers much of the film, Kahaani put up a cast that more than fulfilled the other roles in the movie. Parambrata Chatterjee, a renowned Bengali actor, makes his debut Hindi film appearance as Satyaki  (Rana) Sinha, a mellow hearted police officer who fulfils his role as the 'helper to Arjun' (or the helper to the warrior Vidya, as pointed out to us in the movie) with a sheepish gentleness that provides a much-needed essence of warmth and softness to the movie. Another notable actor is the infallible Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who plays CIB agent A. Khan. With his anti-hero reminiscent bad-cop swagger, A. Khan is the antithesis of Rana, a cop with dehumanising real-world experience that juxtaposes Rana’s innocent immaturity. We see this towards the end, when Rana realizes that Khan is ready to sacrifice Vidya’s life to capture the criminal Damji. The interplay between the natures of these two characters touches on the grim reality of the intersecting worlds of crime and justice. Kahaani uses an interesting milieu of male characters to highlight the darkness of the ‘system’ and the reality of power distribution in a bureaucratic government organization. Khan uses his pawns, Rana and Inspector Chatterjee, to exploit Vidya’s progress in locating her husband, and he in turn unknowingly works for the mole within the CBI. Bob Biswas, the on-the-ground hit-man gets killed in a chase and Rana is made to sit by while Vidya walks to her death. The victimization of the characters lower down the power hierarchy, or “collateral (damage)”, as Khan puts it, effectively brings home the cruelty of a bureaucratic structure and the reality of idealistic morals being ground to dust. 

While Kahaani is supported by a great cast, innovative cinematography, a brilliant twist at the end and progressive social messages about female empowerment, it falls short in the logic of events that forms the basis of a good thriller. The many conveniences in Kahaani, like the sculptor/informant who knows information that is very hard to find and the surprising ease of breaking into secure buildings, would be highly unlikely to happen in reality. However, for Indian popular cinema, Kahaani is a landmark film in the thriller genre, especially for its powerful female protagonist.  Its novel interpretation of the genre and execution of plotline are sure to set the precedent for many better-developed, female-lead thriller movies to come. And for all the women in the future who carry whole movies on their shoulders, Kahaani is an inspiration to “be not afraid, and walk alone” (from the song Ekla Cholo Re, Kahaani).