Most of Hitchcock’s films start in daylight, with bright settings and at times with comic undertones. He once said, "in a light-hearted setting, the advent of drama is made all the more effective by its unexpectedness…The more happy-go-lucky the setting, the greater kick you get from the sudden introduction of drama." This dramatic tension helps to intensify the climax which when attained spellbinds the audience and takes her breath away. The attainment of ‘thrill’ is compounded by Macguffins with an undercurrent of facetious wit. In many of the Hitchcock’s brilliant thrillers there is sharp divide between what the audience ‘knows’ and what the character ‘knows’. This is how the suspense is cultivated and nurtured. The opposite of that (when the audience actually are made not to ‘know’) is in essence depriving the audience, her legitimate insight to the incidents and events that unfurl. In short, that is when the director cheats the audience.
This is the foremost feeling that I had as an audience of the much-hyped hindi thriller Kahaani. There is a scene where in the confines of her home, dejected and rejected by her fortune Vidya Bagchi, the protagonist cries and thinks of her happy past with her husband. Now in a private moment if a character reacts only to the audience, we expect that to be truthful and the reel reality. In deceiving the audience with character doubles in the end, the director convolutes the build-up of the tension. From the very beginning the director wanted his audience to run after speed. There are jerky shots with frequent cuts to create a sense of tension and the feeling of speed. Films made by most Bengali film-makers are in slow ambit to bore the audience, so much so that director Sujoy Ghosh pressed the accelerator from shot 1. Hence, the Hitchcockian sublime built up of the suspense sprinkled with comic situations is lost. Now there is no hard and fast rule to follow Hitchcock in a thriller. However, what is required probably is an economy of expression and not facts. For example the innuendo at the private composure of the HR Manager before she was killed is an excess – adding no value to the character or the nature of the crime, nor is there a Macguffin.
The character of Vidya is woven in incompleteness. Now being incomplete proves vacuum in the creator’s head instead of conscious ambiguity leading to multiple interpretations from the audience. For example, why was there no back-ground check done on Vidya by the Intelligence Bureau? Why not the basic check if she did indeed land from London on that day – when a similar check was done on her estranged husband? The apparent joviality of Vidya’s character is another incident of incompleteness. It was not consciously strewn for the audience to swoop on – consider the little flirtations of Vidya with Rana, the young police officer in the tram where she playfully almost rubbed Rana’s feet with her. To me it makes her character inconsistent instead of being ‘whole’.
What however did create a warm ambience is perhaps the depiction of the city of Kolkata. Trams, the Howrah Bridge and the Durga Puja are unfailing traits of the city. The metro got added to that. There is some deft imagery not in the landmarks but in the broiling smoke of the chai at the roadside tea-stall, in the unwound last tram that ferries people to a different world and the lanes and by-lanes of the city. The city does come-out even further at Kumortuli, the place where Durga idols are being made and in the climax Dasami sequence. But the city had remained soft, and warm with almost sepia colours at night or non-committal, even non-interested in the bright day colours. Only a couple of metro scenes where the chilly whiteness of the screen sends a shiver down the spine. Compare this with Satyajit Ray’s handling of Benares in Joy Baba Felunath you will make out how the city (Benares) nurtures the crime, and itself becomes criminal in instinct. Or for that matter the minimally supreme film Aamir which poses Mumbai as the city you cannot leave, a city you never trust. Sujoy Ghosh’s Kolkata in contrast wanted to be a benevolent character in this saga rather than a heinous conspirator in perpetuating terror.
Vidya Balan’s acting is restrained and rational. She lacked support of the script at places and tried to act consistently to an inconsistent character. Her and Rana’s nightly adventures to a couple of Govt. organizations, breaking open the ancient locks with hairpin is another example of too-much creative license. However her physical acting as the pregnant woman deserves credit. The film belongs to Vidya in heart and soul – it’s just that she had limited opportunities to show the gamut of her histrionic skills. The other actors – a host of Bengali ones at times lacked conviction. Parambrata as Rana is one example whose actions and whose revelation in the end are not exactly the same. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Khan is strong on the other hand though the character was turned to almost a laughing stock in the end (the entire police force and the Intelligence Bureau were turned to that almost sadly). Sawata Chatterjee’s Bob Biswas, the serial killer cum LIC agent is probably one leaf out of Hitchcock’s cinema. He is cold and clinical though his moving around with a revolver at all places and at all times including the metro station is a bit unrealistic. Also unknown why he wanted to push Vidya in front of the speeding train though he actually got her picture via mms (to kill her) much later.
Kahaani ends with the immersion of the Durga idol in the holy waters. This is just after the climax which is heightened with a shock twist. Hitchcock had mentioned a number of times the subtle difference between shock and suspense. As the idol finally takes to the floating waters of life, Vidya Bagchi gets obliterated. She came with a purpose and left after accomplishing that and also helping the legal governance of the country. What the story suffered from was the single-point focus to make Vidya triumphant. This ruined the chances of one A Wednesday in the making which built the suspense even if the audience knew what the characters didn’t. In the ultimate analysis, Kahaani is jazzy and fast-paced. It will enthrall a part of the audience with its unfailing narrative spree towards the climax. For the other part, this film will pass on as tacky and deceitful, for taking the audience as granted and making a fun of their rationale in the end.
