‘Talvar’ Is a Compelling Watch But Is It Objective Storytelling?

Meghna Gulzar’s ‘Talvar’ based on the Aarushi-Hemraj murders is a gut wrenching film, but is it a balanced narrative?

Disclaimer: This write-up does not attempt to review the film.

After a slightly shaky start, Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar sucks you into its narrative and keeps you glued to your seat for a good part of its approximate 2 hour 10 minute duration. Vishal Bhardwaj’s writing is top-notch and the performances pitch perfect.

Though Meghna fumbled her way through a few earlier films including Filhaal... and Just Married, she is completely in control of her story here and serves up a compelling film which doesn’t shy away from showing you sharp instruments going for the jugular, like the filmmaker herself does, when she grabs the material at hand – India’s most discussed, debated and judged double-murder.

Even though it’s a case that’s been around for over 7 years, with every minute detail brought out, many times salaciously, in media reports and news television debates, it’s gut wrenching to see the Aarushi-Hemraj murders play out on screen.

The everyday unassuming upper middle-class couple whose lives are irreversibly shaken up by a catastrophic tragedy, the bungling cops and their farce of an investigation, the CBI’s attempt to bring the case back on track – all of it plays out realistically with a marked measure of morbidity coupled with mundanity that at some points make you feel as if you are watching the theatre of the absurd.

The writer and filmmaker use the multiple point-of-view narrative format to ease us into this whodunit. The attempt being to show us the case, the circumstance, the key players, the motives and the evidence, as objectively as possible.

Remember, though the Talwars had reportedly come very close to giving their official nod to the script and film, they eventually chose not to at the last moment, which is why Talvar (the title smartly denotes the sword in the hand of Lady Justice) uses fictional names in its story. Even the CBI is referred to CDI in the film to play it safe.

But can a filmmaker really be objective, especially in a case like this which has extreme differences of opinion?

In a recent interview to Mumbai Mirror, Meghna Gulzar said,

We were clear Talvar wouldn’t be a biopic, a placard-bearing bandwagon or a voyeuristic look at a tragic incident. What was left was showing all sides fairly and leaving the audience to make their conclusions.
– Meghna Gulzar, Filmmaker

But honestly, you can’t be objective if one of your key players is an earnest and likeable Irrfan Khan (playing a CDI officer) pitted against a paan-chewing thick-skulled Gajraj Rao (playing a UP cop) and his obnoxious seniors. The talented Atul Kumar (another CDI officer) is brought in to balance the scales in the second half but as an audience we’ve already taken sides by then.

Then again, it’s impossible for any thinking filmmaker to be absolutely non-judgmental and unprejudiced about a case in which the basic modalities of an investigation, which even a teenager hooked on a series like CSI would know, were not followed. A case where conclusions were drawn, depending on which version of the ‘truth’ the loudest news television debate flung at you. A case in which, it increasingly began to look like, the accused were presumed to be guilty and then a case built against them.

For the sake of avoiding legal complications, the writer and filmmaker need to be prudent and state that their approach to this macabre double-murder mystery is dramatized and balanced. But sometimes filmmakers need to be unapologetic about feeling the need to be seen as unbiased, because ultimately Talvar blares an eardrum-shattering horn into our listless collective consciousness. It’s a film that was needed to be made, it’s a theory that needs to be heard, it’s a point-of-view that begs to be seen.

(Talvar premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2015, and is scheduled to release on October 2.)