By PTI
Cinema an opportunity to have a conversation: Kanu Behl on exploring power nexus in 'Despatch'
New Delhi, Manoj Bajpayee-starrer "Despatch" is an attempt to understand a modern world becoming more "opaque and foggy" with the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, says filmmaker Kanu Behl.
The film, which premiered at the recently concluded MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, revolves around Joy Bag, a Mumbai-based crime journalist, struggling with mid-life crisis and facing an existential threat from digitalisation. He gets sucked into an increasingly murky affair involving a corporate-political nexus which, if exposed, can shake the foundations of the city.
Inspired by real characters from the world of journalism, "Despatch" began taking shape in 2016, said Behl, known for hard-hitting stories such as "Titli" and "Agra".
The filmmaker and co-writer Ishani Banerjee were not interested in portraying journalists as these "cardboard cut-out kind of characters" who are out to do a story for the greater good.
"We ended up diving into this rabbit hole of research where, over the next year and a half, we ended up meeting a lot of journalists, lawyers, sharpshooters, people from the underworld. The more we researched, we realised that something strange is happening.
"The modern world that we are living in today is becoming so opaque and so foggy that now, as the gap between the rich and poor gets increasingly wider and as the rich hold more and more power, you can't even know who is doing what and for what reason," Behl told PTI.
The 44-year-old filmmaker said as writers, the impulse is to find a clear story but the truth that was emerging out of their research was different.
"And we thought, how interesting is this? Because we are staring at a landscape where we want to do a film about a journalist looking for something, but it's not even possible to find out what he's looking for. And that became really exciting because it gave us the opportunity to do a very subversive film."
With Bajpayee as the perfect vessel to convey the complexities of the story they were telling, Behl said they were keen to do a character piece about journalists with all "their foibles and frailties" while also trying to reflect the truth of the world.
Behl, a graduate from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, began his filmmaking career as an assistant director on Dibakar Banerjee's "Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!" and then co-wrote the critically-acclaimed "Love Sex aur Dhokha" with Banerjee, besides working as the chief assistant director on the project.
His feature film debut "Titli", about a car-jacking gang in Delhi, was selected in the section Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes Film Festival. "Agra", about a sexually repressed man, was part of the Directors' Fortnight section at Cannes.
While he does not want to bind himself into making a certain kind of cinema, Behl said movies, for him, are a way to explore the reality around him.
"I'm interested in exploring the margins of society because there are enough filmmakers who are making happy films and telling those sorts of stories. But cinema, for me, is an opportunity to have a conversation. It is an opportunity to have a conversation about people who might not have the ability themselves, in a strong enough way, to put forth what they are struggling with."
Which is why the central protagonist of "Despatch" is a crime journalist who ends up in a dark descent down the proverbial rabbit hole of lust, greed, and colossal corruption.
"Almost all crime journalists end up functioning on the margins. You find many disenfranchised people at a place of crime and that’s a very interesting area because you get to see the collusion of people who are in power and those who are powerless.
"That’s an area that's rich with the kind of tapestries that you can build, which can bring a lot of irony. And they're rich with possibilities of having a collated idea of the structures of the world that we live in the social, political and cultural."
When Bajpayee, who has over the years found the perfect balance in commercial projects and independent cinema, agreed to the project, Behl said it felt like they had "hit the jackpot".
"He's one of the very few actors who after having had a stellar career of more than 30 years, every morning that he walks up on the set to do a new character, he acts like a first timer. There was no other actor who was better to play this.
"I just recently told him that he is using his power to empower more voices. And not just him, every collaborator on this film, whether it is Zee where the film will be out eventually, Ronnie Screwala who produced it... All of them. There is a section within the industry that is always interested in great cinema and empowering voices."
Is there a cost to making independent films?
Behl said it can be frustrating at times but that's a struggle that every filmmaker goes through.
"Anyone who's interested in whatever they're doing, I think it's not just filmmakers but anybody out there who's truly interested in what they're doing and are willing to go on that path, will face their share of challenges and that's part of the process. It's part of the fun of loving what you do."
Also starring Shahana Goswami, "Despatch" will premiere on streaming service ZEE5 soon.
