New Delhi: As the Pathans and Jawans of Bollywood storm the world, a slow-burn espionage has everyone on the edge of their seats in anticipation—Vishal Bhardwaj’s spy thriller, Khufiya. But instead of SRK saving India, it’s Tabu, as Research and Analysis Wing operative KM (Krishna Mehra), who is tasked with uncovering the truth and investigating a colleague.
Based on former special secretary of R&AW Amar Bhushan’s novel, Escape to Nowhere, the film also stars Ali Fazal as Tabu’s colleague Ravi Mohan and Wamiqa Gabbi as Charu, Mohan’s wife.
For a slow-paced film where a lot of the action takes place in the trenches of the workplace, Tuesday’s preview created plenty of buzz. The Stein Auditorium at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi was packed with invitees and walk-ins as word of the screening—under the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival banner—spread.
Bhardwaj almost did not make the film.
“I was offered the rights of the book before, but I had passed it over. It was Irrfan (Khan) who went to get the rights of the book for himself, and found out that I had rejected it. He scolded me a lot for that,” said Bhardwaj during the post-screening discussion with Fazal and Gabbi, moderated by ThePrint’s editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta.
Fortunately, Bhardwaj got the book after another director failed to make the movie. Finally in 2016, Bhardwaj and co-writer Rohan Narula sat down to work on the script. They added the thrilling post-interval section of the movie, and made changes like the addition of a new plot line to show the toll espionage takes on personal relationships. They also adapted the screenplay so that the lead character, which is based on a man in the book, is played by a woman.
Punctuated with nuggets of information about Bhushan’s original story of an espionage crisis involving a real-life double agent, Khufiya takes its audience through the cat and mouse chase.
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The Bhardwaj treatment
Bhushan’s story gets the Vishal Bhardwaj makeover that transforms a spy story into a fascinating rake about identity, love and espionage.
He picks up on mundane details in the book like the almost boring daily tailing of Mohan and his family or an object like a lawn mower and situates them to add to the story telling. The thrill comes from the detailing of the locations, the surveillance, and the quirks and dialogues of the intelligence agents, who look so ‘everyday’ that they could quite literally be your next-door neighbour.
“I call it sophisticated manipulation that Bhardwaj sir does. He empowers his actors to feel like we have come up with something new on our own,” said Fazal. The actor prepared for his role as the antagonist Mohan during phone calls with Bhushan, among other things.
What stands out is the atmosphere Bhardwaj creates, be it in his other OTT offering Charlie Chopra & the Mystery of Solang Valley or Khufiya. He highlights a particular flaw of each character. The viewer is a voyeur.
In Khufiya, frames set in Connaught Place, or The Embassy or The Imperial, Bhardwaj gives us a glimpse of the life and lifestyle of Delhi’s upper middle-class from 15 or so odd-years ago.
The challenge for Bhardwaj was primarily to convey his vision about the espionage operation to the audience, beyond what the book is about.
“You miss the thrill when you are reading a book, for example the four-minute-long sequence of following the suspect, from Darya Ganj, Chawri Bazar to Lodhi garden,” said Bhardwaj.
He uses every trick of the director’s trade from background music to sets to drum up anticipation.
He creates the world of routine espionage surveillance in a manner that makes it not just engaging but also true to life, which is about patience, long and boring days, and inaction.
“I wanted people to get to see how it actually happens, and I felt that it would be something new for them,” he said.
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The element of fun
Tabu, who was conspicuous in her absence from the film’s promotions, and the screening, shared a throwback picture on her Instagram from the sets of Haider (2014). Khufiya marks another crucial milestone in the long association between the actor and the director.
“There is a certain trust we have between us that helps make the vision come alive in movies,” said Bhardwaj.
From the guilt of being an absent mother to the many challenges of leading a double life, Tabu’s character shines through for both how it is written, and the actor who plays it.
KM’s personal and professional lives intersect and form an important layer of the thriller. Khufiya or secret refers to both espionage and her secret life and identity.
But getting her on board also had a fiscal reason. “I roped in Tabu because when an actor like her is on board, it becomes easier to get the money to make the film,” Bhardwaj said.
An audience member also asked the director the reason for creating such an entertaining character of Mohan’s mother, Ammaji played by theater and TV personality, Navnindra Behl. For Bhardwaj, it was a creative gamble to create some element of fun, and also shock the viewers’ pre-conceived notions of old women. Ammaji’s docile, yet righteous envy of the love showered by Mohan on his wife is stripped away the moment her role in her son’s activities is revealed.
Another sparkling addition to the script is a godman who is a mix of Jaggi Vasudev and Osho punctuating the tense and emotional moments in the film with songs of Kabir and Rahim, albeit in rock. Gupta joked that in the credits, Bhardwaj should have referred to Gulzar, the lyricist of the film as a sant too, like he had addressed both Kabir and Rahim.
Such is the Bhardwaj fandom that people waited till 11:30 pm on a Tuesday, to listen to the very end of the discussion with rapt attention. “When I saw the audience reaction today, I finally felt confident about the film I have made,” said Bhardwaj.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)