Talvar: Why Vishal Bharadwaj’s brand of cinema has begun to freak me out

Everybody was talking about the movie. The critics said dispassionate, disturbing, hard hitting, great drama. “Oh, the poor Talwars! They have been wronged and wrongfully ostracised all these years!” were among the remarks I was hearing among friends, colleagues. 

My landlady came out excitedly one morning the same week, stopped me by the gate, saying, Shruthi (her daughter) watched the movie and came back so disturbed; what a movie, great cinema. 




Twitter was abuzz too with #Talvar and #FreeTheTalwars going berserk with tweets. Wow. I have to watch this, I thought. The first chance, on a public holiday and I knew where I was headed the evening. The show went - what we used to term during the pre-multiplex days - houseful.  

Talvar was very impressive, no songs, no melodrama. Just documentary, reality drama style.
The movie definitely had the audience engaged. There was pin drop silence. The casting ensemble was impeccable – Irrfan (he spells it that way) Khan, Neeraj Kabi, Konkona Sensharma and a host of other seasoned support artists, including Prakash Belawadi in a memorable cameo. Names had been changed, but the world knew this was based on the infamous Aarushi Talwar case.  As it tries to reconstruct what might have happened that night in May 2008, when a 14 year old girl and the household help lost their lives, the movie takes us through a journey that can stay on the mind for a while. Director Meghana Gulzar had skilfully adapted Vishal Bharadwaj’s script to make a drama that had people coming out of the theatre wondering, wondering…Are the Talwars guilty? Maybe not, is what is gaining credence among people.

I began to wonder too. It was during my wonderment that my problem with Talvar began.

Why did Vishal Bharadwaj choose the Talwar case 5 years (the team started scripting in 2013) after the incident?

That the girl belonged to the more privileged class of society by virtue of her parents being dentists, that this case attracted the kind of attention it did and perhaps is still sale-able enough for a movie script – is a fact we can’t sideline. And the fact that there was so much media sensation that it still sells as a story like the Sheena Bora case does, is another consideration too. Real life stories, no fiction here. Great scope for real storytelling. Also, that the passage of time has allowed for more facts to emerge. All good points, in favor of the makers of the film, but, Bharadwaj & Co have not played this one straight.

Close on the heels of a book on the Aarushi case by journalist Avirook Sen, that came out this year, of all the years,  and despite claims of being an objective analysis in a "Roshomonisque" mode, the movie clearly, very evidently, just like Sen's well timed book, roots for the innocence of the parents, with one version of the CBI (called CDI in the movie) being given the maximum footage.  The other version, the parents being shown guilty, is played up as a “trumped, cooked up” version. Trust me yes, that is what has been done. 

Interestingly, there was a movie by name “Rahasya” that was made last year and that was supposedly based on the same case. The Talwars filed an objection with the Censor Board, since the timing of the movie had an unfortunate co-incidence with a hearing on their appeal to the Allahabad court. Apparently “Rahasya” had depicted the parents as guilty of the heinous crime. The family "did not want public opinion to be vitiated intensely against them", or so the objection noted.

Switch to 2015, here comes Talvar. Junior Gulzar states, rather justifies, in an interview, “that she did not feel the need to take the consent of the Talwars”, and why not? With a movie script that backs them, why would the Talwars have any bone to pick here? This movie is like that authorized biography of controversial celebrities, where difficult questions are sugar coated with sweet answers. No one is bound to have a problem anywhere. All are happy. 

If the Talwars were really such a conscientious lot, they should have evenly objected to this movie as well (the stand in the movie being immaterial), on the sheer grounds that their lives, their family was being turned into another nationwide tamasha, all in the name of cinema. Point here? Makes one wonder who is really backing this venture, in the real sense of the word, even if it is the Times Group on paper. I am not insinuating here, just calling for some thought. 

Like all tales of mystery, the truth, in this case too, will perhaps, remain unresolved. But, the larger disturbing fact is that of the Vishal Bharadwaj-Meghana Gulzar combine actually using their astute cinematic aesthetics for a venture such as this. The movie does not make the customary claims of a fictionalized account. Meaning, implying that whatever is being shown to us is nearly the authentic, indepth, investigated truth. Really??!!

And unlike "Rahasya", which critics dismissed as a fictionalized mediocrity,and which sank without too much public attention, “Talvar” has managed to do what no media, no court, no police, no CBI has done so far, and perhaps what even the best efforts of the Talwars have been able to accomplish all these years. The next time, any major move happens in the Talwar case, one should not be surprised to see people holding candlelight vigils for the Talwar couple.

The family and their champions are clearly capitalizing on the movie and Sen's book on all the platforms – social media, the works. And the Times Group, the financiers for this film, are sponsoring a campaign to "Fast track the Talwar case". And also, the Times Group is rekindling interest towards the case, with the former CBI officer, Arun Kumar who had done the initial probe, speaking freely about why he believes the parents are innocent and why Talvar is such a masterpiece. Really, why so much interest? Is it all truly altrustic? Can one book and a movie in the same year be dismissed as a co-incidence? Hmmmmm....

That is when I say, Vishal Bharadwaj’s brand of cinema freaks me out, or rather, it has begun to freak me out - for the kind of perceptions it builds, for the way it turns the mind of the cine-going people. I do not want to talk at length about "Haider" here, or the movie's open tirade against the armed forces, God help me, since that is a separate story in itself - when I made an innocuous remark praising the movie on Facebook and I got to hear the rants of some friends! I still have to thank the people who made me think. This post is a result of some reflection after that as well, when you start connecting the dots. Haider was still a "fictionalized Shakespearean adaptation", set in Kashmir; we can seek refuge in that theory. But Talvar? It is real, and it is officially played up as a real life account.  I can now well relate to and empathize with the irritation of the people who commented on my earlier Facebook status message on "Haider". There is no way to justify Vishal Bharadwaj's brainwashing projects anymore, as a film maker's right to interpret. 

The point is, it is no secret that cinema can influence audiences, no matter where they are. And if it comes from such an authentic stable as this, then the multiplex audience is definitely hooked and booked. 

One movie has definitely tilted the balance of opinion, if not justice, in the minds of the people, towards the dentist couple. If they well merit it, so be it, if they don’t, then Mr Bharadwaj, I have been a fan of your music, your movies too, but in this case, and for some time now, as I have been observing your brand of cinema, I am disappointed. What will be your next mission? Establishing Indrani Bora as the innocent, wrongfully vilified victim??