Spy Drama is not a run-of-the-mill espionage drama
New Delhi:
Secret Agents has become a staple of Bollywood action movies over the years. A handful of them, played by Mumbai’s biggest stars, now form a full-fledged detective universe roasted by the industry’s top production houses. They are unlikely to disappear from the Hindi showbiz radar anytime soon. Should we be interested in a small, understated cinematic clone built around a bunch of spies who are no patch on the big boys of the game? The answer is yes. Berlin, written and directed by Atul Sabharwal, is not a run-of-the-mill espionage drama.
Not a thriller by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a cautionary tale of sorts, the film subverts the genre. If you warm to it, you can keep your investment substantial here.
Savarwal’s script isolates the building blocks and creates, with subdued light and color, a spy thriller far removed from the universe inhabited by the likes of tigers and pathans.
Berlin has limited star power. Songless, it also works with minimal background music. And the conspirators are either very ordinary boys with their backs against the wall or trained spies whose work is beyond heroic.
The film streaming on Zee5 depicts a world where truth is essential or, at best, prone to manipulation. Facts are twisted to serve the interests of those in the business of creating narratives, be they national, geopolitical or merely self-serving.
Berlin revolves around a deaf-mute accused of spying for a foreign country, a sign language interpreter to interrogate the suspect, a senior intelligence officer with many axes to grind to spy on other agents.
The two-hour film has a few quick chase scenes and stray moments of rough-and-ready action, but it makes up for the scenes of violence and cheesy rhetoric in key scenes. It’s not about crusaders fighting for nations but about individuals operating in the shadows, intent on protecting their turf, covering their tracks and saving their skins, none of which they can do without causing considerable collateral damage.
Since the set-up of such a narrative in such hyper-nationalist times would amount to a religious adventure, Savarval sets his story in 1993 on the eve of a state visit by the post-Cold War Russian president, who has signed a cryogenic rocket deal. The sleeves are far from satisfying the United States. The danger of an attempt on the lives of visiting dignitaries is high.
Complementing the covert efforts to keep India’s guests safe is the brazen game that the two arms of the intelligence apparatus – the Bureau and the Wing – play against each other.
Berlin gets its title from a fictional Connaught Place cafe frequented by government officials and secret agents and used to trade classified information. All the people who wait tables here are hearing impaired. Ashok Kumar (Ishwak Singh), the most observant of the lot, is among them.
A Bureau team led by Satpal Dhingra (Rahul Bose) arrests Ashok Kumar and charges him with sedition. Pushkin Varma (Aparashakti Khurana), employed as a teacher at a government school for deaf-mute children, is summoned for questioning. Before each session, Dhingra, whose purpose is shrouded in mystery, gives Pushkin the questions to ask.
Two ordinary people are sucked into the world of espionage. Pushkin raises the predetermined question. Ashoka uses sign language to answer. Silence, hand gestures, and Pushkin’s explanations for the benefit of Dhingra and his men give way to dialogue and elicit information that eludes observers.
The two actors at its center are consistently in their element. Ishwak Singh in particular is at once expressive and enigmatic. Is Ashok Kumar an innocent victim or a man who really knows too much? Actor Singh adds to the mystique of the practice — and the character.
Apashakti Khurana as a suspicious teacher sucked into a messy deal that often comes close to endangering his life, the character conveys a mix of delusional and dogmatic through all the mind games he plays.
Rahul Bose realizes the defining characteristics of the man he plays and runs with them without going overboard. The intelligence agency honcho — he reports to the bureau chief (Kabir Bedi in a cameo) — and his subordinates have skeletons in their closets. They will go to any length to keep them there.
Berlin Spies is definitely not like the Hindi movie Sinha. One of them, the head of the wing (Deepak Kazir Kejriwal), seeks to disprove Pushkin’s popular belief that intelligence agents know everything and are privy to government secrets.
“Hum vi guess hai karna hai,” he says. “We put two plus two and arrive at 3 and 5, rarely at 4.” Berlin scores with his candid and devastating portrayal of secret agents as flawed and vulnerable human beings and not as invincible men of steel. Satpala Dhingra and his men are plagued with doubts and suspicions.
To some, Berlin can come across as muted to the point of obscurity. If so, they would have to be pushed to recognize the film’s courage in swimming against the tide of popular preconceptions.
To be sure, Berlin is not immune to a few creative misconceptions. None is more evident than in the details of its overwrought period. Although much of the film is shot indoors, the exterior scenes and interior scenes of the eponymous cafe evoke more of the 1970s (if not the 1960s) than the early 1990s.
This irony aside, Berlin deserves praise for defying the current claims of Bollywood’s spy movie template.
