Review: Talaash.

One of the many reasons why I love film noirs is the insight they provide into brooding, wounded male psyches. The noir heroes are usually worlds removed from the charismatic, flamboyant leading men who generally adorn the silver screen: in their gruff demeanour, heavy smoking or drinking, and the tendency to sit in the dark and mull over morbid things, they represent the exact antithesis to the kind of entertainment we expect from the movies. And yet, there is something endlessly fascinating about these men, about the scars that lie, barely concealed, beneath their tough guy-exterior. These men are haunted by demons from their past—generally, it’s a childhood trauma, or a skeleton in the closet, or the loss of loved ones and their failure to do something to prevent the tragedy that torments them—and in order to hold on to sanity and keep functioning, they dive headlong into their work, keeping the senses occupied with the rigours of the job, so that they don’t have to face themselves too often. Or else, they are simply loners by nature, men who don’t fit in and don't want to, for the society as they see it has little to tempt them to be a part of it. It’s not an accident either, I think, that the noir hero is usually a cop or a detective. They are a part of such professions either because the nature of the job fits their prickly temperament, or because it’s crime that wounded them in the first place and hence becomes the target of their seething anger, or because they try, subconsciously at least, to atone for a lapse by trying to do at least some good as an agent of law. Which doesn’t make them some knight in shining armour—a noir hero can be violent, unpleasant, and at times, not too far removed from the dregs he pursues. But therein lies another challenge (and another fascinating side to them): as Raymond Chandler wrote, “Down these mean streets must go a man who himself is not mean.” In other words, the noir hero has to wade through muck while trying his level best not to be dragged into it. It’s not possible to stay in the gutter and not to smell, but noir protagonists nevertheless try to stick to some code of honour of their own, performing a tightrope walk between cynicism and idealism.

Talaash, I would say, ought to be watched simply because it gives us such a protagonist. The first glace we get of Inspector Surjan Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) is through the windscreen of his vehicle as he drives to a location where an accident has claimed a life. Normally, heroes in Bollywood films, especially when played by a big star, get a grandiose entry—their silhouetted forms gradually coming into view to the accompaniment of a rousing tune, for instance, or the close-ups of his eyes, arms or legs giving way to a full revelation of the face, also to the accompaniment of a rousing tune—but that kind of entry has no place in a noir, for its central character is very much a man of this world, and not a larger-than-life swaggerer. The decidedly unflashy entry of Shekhawat, then, is as clear an indication as any that he is no Chulbul Pandey. That fact is underscored when a junior officer, clearly in awe of his superior, gushes, “Bahut suna hain aapke bare mein”, and adds that he is glad to be able to assist Shekhawat in this case. Pandey would have responded to that with an endearingly smug grin and a smartass one-liner, but Shekhawat acknowledges these compliments with the barest hint of a smile, and then goes on to brusquely inquire about the accident. And we understand immediately that this is a man for whom all things worldly (such as his fame as a cop) have ceased to matter. The reason behind that is revealed soon afterwards: like Vishnu Kamath (Abhishek Bachchan) from the previous year’s Dum Maaro Dum, Shekhawat has suffered a tragedy, and like Kamath, he feels he is responsible for the mishap. Consequently, he has withdrawn into a shell, making himself inaccessible to all, including his loving, supportive wife Roshni (Rani Mukerjee, delivering one of her best performances, and looking blessedly human sans makeup). He buries his sorrow, his bitterness, beneath his khakis, but guilt keeps gnawing away at his insides, leaving behind raw nerves that can't withstand the slightest of provocations. There's a scene where the madam of a brothel responds flippantly to a question posed by Shekhawat’s associate, leaving the latter flustered. Shekhawat steps forward, and speaks to the woman with a growl in his voice that makes her change her tone real fast, and we get the feeling that had it been a man rather than a woman trying to act smart, the scene would have ended with him nursing a broken jaw. Shekhawat's scalded heart doesn’t set much store by etiquette or politeness either: he is downright livid at Frenny (Shernaz Patel), a kooky neighbour, for what he sees as her attempts to take advantage of the tragedy that has befallen him and his wife (though it is clear to us, the viewers, the Frenny wishes to do nothing of the sort), and he rather rudely disinvites a couple of family friends whom Roshni wants to call for dinner (because they remind him, all the more, of his loss). He aimlessly drives his vehicle all over Mumbai, shedding helpless tears, and at night, he roams around his house like a somnambulist, his mind picturing the many ways he could have prevented the death that has reduced him to almost a cipher. In other words, Shekhawat is the quintessential noir figure: traumatized, weary, and hovering on the brink of disintegration.

Kagti’s noir sensibilities also manifest themselves in other ways, such as her depiction of Mumbai as an urban jungle whose glittering facade hides a most unpleasant reality, which is that its inhabitants occupy various rungs in a metaphorical food chain, with each successive rung preying upon the ones below it and being preyed upon, in turn, by the ones above. The opening credits play over a montage of night-time scenes in Mumbai, showing vagrants and beggars roaming the streets, or sitting on footpaths opposite the skyscrapers which are the very symbols of money and influence. This juxtaposition of abject poverty and immense wealth fits in with the lyrics of the dirge that accompanies these visuals: “rangeen hain chhayi, phir bhi hain tanhai”, the song goes, that all the colour and charm of the city can’t negate the fact that there’s much sadness around too. If these footpath-dwellers belong to the lowest strata of the society, the denizens of the red-light area, where much of the film is set, are barely a notch above in terms of the visibility and dignity they are accorded. Forced to decorate themselves with garish make-up and clothes, and trotted out to the streets under the watchful eyes of their pimps in order to be picked up by 'customers', the prostitutes are treated as little more than wares in a shop who have some worth as long as they are young—the moment wrinkles appear and the flesh begins to sag, as is the case with Nirmala (Sheeba Chaddha), they are tossed aside. The pimps, who lord it over these women, are in turn subservient to the people to whom they have to send the girls, and they, too, are valuable as long as they have any utility. When one pimp is diagnosed with a fatal disease, he is not only sacked from his job in a seedy hotel, but is banished from the city altogether, and sent off to his village to die in obscurity. The rich, of course, can, and do, get away with a lot of things. But they aren't spared the looking-over-the-shoulder anxiety, because the hierarchy whose apex they occupy is by no means stable. There are occasions, as we see, when those in the base aspire to move higher up the ladder, and resort to any means to do so, prompting the apex-dwellers to dish out their own brand of violence in order to maintain the status quo. It’s a grim, grim take on the world we live in, and achingly accurate, and this view of city life as dark and corrupt, this emphasis on the seamy underbelly of urban areas is a hallmark of noir cinema. Kagti, in fact, returns to the disreputable venues, especially the whorehouses, again and again, providing us with a close look at the darkness beneath the glitz of the metropolises. Apart from serving narrative needs, these scenes also make the film richly atmospheric: a sense of anxiety (which finds verbal expression when a character asks another, “Paseene kyun chhoot rahe hain tere?”) hangs in the air, ensuring that we keep watching as Shekhawat investigates the accident, which killed a Bollywood star named Armaan Kapoor, whose car swivelled off the street and fell into the sea, despite there being nothing visible on the street to halt or startle him. As is usually the case in a noir, the case turns out to be more complicated than it appeared, involving blackmail, foul-play, and, eventually, other killings. The sharp editing, offering us tantalizing bits of observation and gripping snatches of revelatory dialogues without explaining everything away at one go, adds to it.

This procedural format, however, turns out to be something of a red herring. Shekhawat’s hunt for the culprits, and the investigative plotline promised by the title, is not the only focus of the film, though the way Talaash has been marketed would make you think it is. Moreover, despite the aforementioned noir-ish touches, the film, it turns out, is not interested in simply being a noir. It’s also a character study of a couple—Shekhawat and Roshni—as they attempt to navigate through their grief and reconciliate; a social drama of sorts about the plight of those who live beyond the lights; and a depiction of how the cruelties inflicted on them may continue to have repercussions and reverberations even after the victim has, well, died. This final aspect forms the basis for the climactic twist of the film. Whether or not you shall like Talaash depends largely on whether you buy this twist. Personally speaking, it worked for me. It sure calls for suspension of disbelief, and when you first see it, it may leave you baffled, but as you think back, you realize that Kagti has been leaving the breadcrumbs right from the first shot, which showed a dog howling in an ominous fashion, sensing something that the humans around it obviously couldn’t. The character of Frenny is also a hint, as are the enigmatic words and actions of Rosie (Kareena Kapoor), the prostitute who helps Shekhawat with the case, and around whom the twist revolves. It helps, also, that Rosie, like Shekhawat and Roshni, is a very well-written character, and Kareena plays the part beautifully, evoking a sense of unearthliness that fits in with the final big reveal. Kagti’s sure-footed, restrained handling of the twist, aided, once again, by the snippy scissors of the editor, helped me accept it all without feeling duped. Inspite of the spook factor, the twist plays out more in the vein of melancholia than as something out of a horror film. “Sochnewali baat hain na sahab, ek ladki gayab ho jati hain, aur kisiko koi fark hi nahin padta?” asks a character, and the agony inherent in those words inform the twist, inviting us to reflect on the injustices we inflict rather than to duck in fear. Besides, it’s entirely possible that the twist points at the limits of rationality, which, to Shekhawat, is of paramount importance, while Roshni is aware of the fact that there are indeed more things in the world than are dreamt of by any rational mind. The vindication of her views at the end serves as much to reconcile her to Shekhawat as to underscore, in its own way, the noir principle that the means and faculties with which crimes were solved by the Golden Age detectives—observation, deduction, forensics, logic and superior intellect—are not really of much use many a times, that there’s a lot in this world which can’t be understood or solved by any of that. Shekhawat’srealization of the same forms, in a way, the crux of Talaash.

Even if this revelation doesn’t impress you, though, the journey to it is still worth undertaking, for there’s much to admire along the way, beginning with the occasional snatches of humour, such as the trick Shekhawat uses to find out which policemen unethically leak information to the media, and a mobile blaring out in the pocket of Temur (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), the associate of a pimp, as he tries to convince Shekhawat that he has no money even to buy food. Siddique’s performance is a thing of beauty: with the right mix of comic timing and pathos, he turns Temur into not so much a wise fool as a sad fool. We may laugh at his clumsiness, but we also come to care for him and his modest dreams, the shattering of which creates a sense of genuine heartache. He is a part of a supporting cast of equally gifted character actors—Raj Kumar Yadav, Subrat Dutta—who breathe life into the roles they play, no matter how brief their screen time. Above all, there is Aamir himself. Watching him in this film, I wondered if anybody who saw Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and the other candyfloss films he did as a newcomer, or even those of us who started loving him post the annus mirabilis act of Lagaan

and Dil Chahta Hai in 2001, could have imagined that this chocolate-faced hero would one day convey a sense of world weariness, a rugged masculinity reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart. Even in his earlier cop role in Sarfarosh, he often looked too green, too sweet, for the tough-as-nails officer he was playing, but here, whether due to his advancing years, or due to better developed acting abilities, he looks and fits the part so completely, that not for a minute could I take my eyes off Inspector Shekhawat. I wrote earlier that the film functions, among other things, as a character study of a couple who try and learn to overcome their grief, and as excellent as Rani is, this part of the film works so well chiefly because of Aamir. Watching him wield a toy lightsaber that belonged to his loved one while sitting in a dark room, or holding a conversation with Rosie at the seaside in what is one of the best scenes of the film, you find yourself invested so completely in this man’s plight, in his search for peace and redemption, that this alone becomes, as I stated, a reason to watch the film. When the occasion calls for it, Aamir can play to the gallery--the scene where he rescues a girl from the brothels is downright whistle-worthy--but mostly, this is a study in understatement. The solution to the mystery that Shekhawat reaches may raise some hackles, but nobody, I believe, would grudge spending a few hours in the company of a person this fascinating.