‘Berlin’ Movie Review: Apashakti Khurrana and Ishwak Singh become voices of dissent in this devastating espionage thriller

A still from ‘Berlin’

Set in the Delhi winter of 1993 as the Iron Curtain rises over Europe after years of cold war, Berlin Takes us back to the time when India was still under Soviet influence in more ways than one. The American Dream was viewed with suspicion. It was still cool to be called socialist and liberalization had yet to find its footing. At a time when mobile libraries sold poems by Alexander Pushkin, Delhi’s Russian Culture Center was a hub of cultural activity, and cryogenic engines and Scud missiles were part of newspaper headlines barely documented in popular culture.

Characterized by unusual titles and interrelated battles, in writer-director Atul Sabharwal’s films, one can hear the loneliness and struggle of consciousness. after Aurangzeb And Class of ’83He once again paints a layered picture where the pain and silence of the protagonists creates a heady psychological excitement without showing it off. For a change, in a high-stakes espionage thriller, Make-Believe feels like a lived experience.

Along with cinematographer Sri Namjoshi, Atul deftly recreates the atmosphere when the spies turn into headless chickens. There is a lot of activity in the intelligence circuit ahead of the visit of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Ashok, a waiter in a Berlin cafe — one ada For exchanging classified information, Connaught is somewhere in the artery of the circus — caught on espionage charges.

Deaf, mute and an orphan, Ashok is a mystery that both Bureau and Wing, two intelligence agencies of the government, want to solve. Cocked a trick on his cunningly trained and so-called able-bodied sleuths. Bureau mandarins bring in a sign language teacher Pushkin Verma (Aparashakti Khurana) to access Ashok’s mind and interpret his cryptic language for the sly and unruly spymaster Sodhi (Rahul Bose). As the question-and-answer game begins, Pushkin realizes that there is more to him than what he has been told. As Ashoka speaks through Pushkin, words like patriotism and national pride begin to turn into blackmail and honey traps, much to the chagrin of Sodhi and his cohorts. It is becoming increasingly difficult to discern who is sharing classified information and who has compromised their conscience.

In keeping with the glossy production design (Ashok Lokre and Sandeep Sheller) that becomes a character in the narrative, Berlin Cruel in pursuit of truth. Eschewing the frills we often associate with the genre of mainstream Hindi cinema, the narrative builds on subversive and meta moments. Like the Berlin Wall, deaf and silent waiters keep agents’ secrets intact on the cafe’s information trading floor.

After a point, the mute Ashoka becomes the voice of truth that Pushkin is desperate to save, but Sodhi is determined to twist it for self-interest. For Sodhi, truth is what is recorded, signed and archived. The line touches a raw nerve as it becomes increasingly difficult to keep one’s voice truthful and unadulterated.

after jubileeApashakti once again shows that he is not a one-trick pony who only performs comic beats. Ishwak catches attention with his Bachal students. Atul ensures that there is a subtle but distinct difference between the sign language used by Pushkin and Ashoka, while Rahul is menacing as a simple officer only interested in saving his skin.

The brutalist architecture that dots central Delhi’s government buildings creates a dark backdrop and together the cold color palette complements the dour tone of the story. The angularity of the iconic Parikrama Tower seems ominous. Like exposed concrete, the film is devoid of any glassy patches. A quotidian but perhaps the most glaring symbol of disaster is the shoe cleaner, which probably found its way from Atul’s insightful documentary on the shoe industry in Agra, which points to the desperation to remove grime and paint the image.

Berlin is currently streaming on ZEE5