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E05: Kahaani Screenwriting Breakdown · Breakdown Besties | Bollywood Screenwriting Podcast

• Breakdown Besties Podcast: for today? Yeah, think so. Shall I show the people like I have a new light system? ⁓ No, no, don't move it. Don't move it, you'll get cleared. Okay, hi everyone and welcome to the Breakdown Besties Podcast episode number five. I'm Ananya. I'm Akshay. And together we have about 14 years of combined experience writing for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus. on shows like Mismatch, Wedding.com, Shark Tank, Rana and I Do, Inside Edge and Drapan, amongst other millions of projects which have gotten stuck in development here, but we'll see the light of day someday. Our goal with this podcast is to break down what goes within the scripts and films give you the films that are on screen. What are the techniques that screenwriters use to be able to get your attention? And the film we're going to be breaking down today. is the 2012 acclaimed mystery thriller, Kahani, written by a veritable army of writers, Sujoy Ghosh, Advaita Kala, Suresh Nair, Ritesh Shah and Nikhil Vyas, who've come together to give us this banger of a film. So let's jump right in. I have a log line written down that we can break down. Should I read it up? Yeah, let's do that. Okay, so when a relentless pregnant woman comes to Kolkata to find her missing husband, she must contend with the force of a dark and dirty system that is adamant on keeping her from finding out the truth, lest she lose her life. Yeah, that's great. I think you're quite nice to establish the character situation, which is the she is a relentless pregnant woman who has come to Kolkata. and maybe maybe should we say ships come from abroad so like we can establish that how not needed I don't think that really plays into the middle of the thing. Like the story doesn't really play on the five but she's from abroad. Like she could have been from South India Yeah, that's true. That's So breaking this down into its four main components like we already do, like we always do, it is the flaw, which is where she's relentless. I don't think being pregnant is a flaw, but in the context of this... I can't think of my life. don't know. Relentless. We have a goal, which is element number two, which is finding her missing husband very clearly established. The third one is the conflict which she has to face. And that is she is contending with the force of her dark and dirty system. The entire thing. So we know that she's relentless. The system is dark and dirty. So the two are going to clash. And what's at stake is her nights. You know what the thing about the steak that it's her life? You don't get to see that in the beginning of the film. So tell me something, when we write the log line and when we establish steak, does that you have to think of the steak while entering the story or what's it at large? That's a good question. Because at the beginning, I think the stakes are set up at the end of the first act. So as you cross into the step-should, you see what you're up against and what you're losing in that beat, that sequence. And that's when you get a sense of what's actually going to come for you. You don't realize what you're going up against until you are actually in the world. Like you have a sense of it. But what do you actually stand to lose only comes in once you interact with the world. So I think if it's established when they, you know, cross the point of no return, when they're within that sequence and you see what's at stake, that's when you establish it. So I think that element becomes your stake at that structural point. But it's not a necessity that the character must be aware of the stake. Is the character cognizant of what he might lose or what they might like is at stake for them? Or we as a storyteller can project that on the log line. I think because the log line is for our internal guidance and for a pitching point of reference until like pitch, that we should do what A feels the most dramatic and is the highest level of stakes for both pitching and such that guides are writing. So when I'm looking at every scene, what I want to think of is the fact that if the stakes here are her losing her life, how will this seem? She may not know it, but that is the level of fear in drama that I want to create as a writer. That's great because I think a lot of the sequences of this film ⁓ are designed in such a way that there is a threat to her. You know, like there is a lot of intercutting being done in sequences where, you know, she might lose her life. So, I guess you're a bang on. But do you think if we can tweak it? to like lose her life or less she get killed or like I don't know like less she yeah more dramatic in the writing in the wording you're saying yeah let she be murdered yeah yeah let she fall yeah I don't know yeah let she be silenced by these forces forever if you really want to go dramatic if you're doing it in like a studio pitch format then you will want to be more precise and Prozac and the way you say it. But over here, I think for our internal purpose, we just need to set up the idea that what's at stake is for life. Yeah, that's good. Good. Okay. So that is our log line. Always remember the log line is essential to set up for you as a writer, not even for pitch purpose, but because you are going to be using this as your guiding light. Every scene is going to be determined by your logline. It's going to be falling within the criteria of these four elements of the flaw, of the goal, of the conflict and of the stakes. These need to be evident in every scene, every sequence and the story overall. So recap the logline before you go into your writing day every single time. That's PSA from the teacher. We do call this a film school experience. Yeah, it's something which we never got in such a structured way. like, yeah, anybody finds this helpful. Yeah. Repetition, repetition when it goes in our heads. It's like Duolingo when they teach you language and it just keeps repeating what is an apple, what is an apple, what is an apple. Because that's the first thing I'm going to learn when I come to France. I'm going to say when I come to France. Now what is an apple? Not hello, I know how are you, but can I have an apple? Apple. Yay. So the next thing which we always do is go into our hero's journey. The hero's journey is our structural spine, the backbone of our story. It has all the beats which a hero going on a journey like your characters in your story will be doing after hit to provide the audience with an emotional experience that feels well-rounded and complete. It ensures that even if your story is lacking in certain moments, it's not fully designed, you will hit the emotional beats you need to cause the impact and keep the story running, keep the engine going. Right. So that in mind, let us begin with the hero journey. Let's get into it. So I found the hero journey very straightforward in this. It was evident to me in how it played out. And we can begin and turn this into a discussion. So the first is our ordinary world. So the ordinary world is where you set up the world in which the hero is going to begin their journey. What is the normal circumstance? So the ordinary world in this movie, I'm going to excuse the opening image where we see the Kolkata Metro being attacked, that is pre-credits, which ties into the story later. But over here, our ordinary world is Vidya Lanz. She goes right to the police station. She files a complaint. And from that point on, you see the world in which she is going to live. The world is one which is not giving her complete information, which is going to be confusing. She goes to the hotel. At the hotel, there's not enough information for her. They say that we don't have our records on the computer. Then she goes and meets Agnes D'Amendo at the NDC where her husband used to work and she doesn't get any information there. She goes to the mall to identify a body. Thankfully, it's not her husband's. She goes to meet his family. She goes to the hotel. She goes to a school, but nothing over there. Like she doesn't get any information. Everything is like leading her down or leading her to close doors. So that's the ordinary world I believe in, she's living, but she's going to encounter a lot of closed doors while trying to solve this mystery. Wow. So like you thought all of this was ordinary for it. I just thought the first scene was ordinary for it to be. Yeah, I thought the moment ⁓ Vidya Bhatia comes to Kolkata and she says, I'm trying to look for my husband. He's missing that whole police station scene like it's quite crucial in the story because like you said it gives a sense of where the story is gonna be situated. How what's the world like so even like the constant peeping of the computer which comes back later in the film. ⁓ We'll get to that really. And so I thought all of that was the ⁓ until she reaches her hotel, I thought that was the ordinary world. But the moment she herself starts investigating, I thought that was the call to action for me. But I was curious to know what's your call to action then? My call to action is when Agnes Demello meets her at Mocambo. And she said that, there is more to this than meets the eye. Cause otherwise she was just investigating on her own because that's what you do. Right. In such a case, you don't leave it up to law enforcement to say that I'm going to trust them blindly, especially when she's a woman on a mission without a job. Like she's clearly come to Calcutta to be able to see what's going on with this case. So she's not going to sit around in that room all day. It's an ugly room. It's a dirty room. She is going to go out there. but she thinks it's a normal case like her husband is missing but the real mystery the call to action is when Agnes Demello tells her that no there is a guy called Milan Damji who looks exactly like her husband and his records are restricted and I believe that is also meeting the mentor because in this film Agnes Demello is the mentor so when she gives her this information is when she takes on the role of the mentor That is when it is employed. thought that Agnes Depello information was crossing the threshold. For me, it felt like because I thought that was the first time our character comes to know that there is a bigger mystery could be looming around her missing husband. Where the idea that, ⁓ I'm here to look for my husband, but there is a new sudden entity called Milan Damji and As a viewer, we're also seeing a little bit of, ⁓ you know, the intercutting, there's an Inspector Khan's character saying, ⁓ she's looking for Miran Damji's records. I'm so fond that. That comes later. That is Crossing the Threshold. They're two very subtle scenes. You've got them mixed up in your head. So, I'll tell you what, my flow was still like the Crossing the Threshold. I thought she's looking for husband is regular life. she starts investigating as the call to action. But when she goes to that school, when she goes to the relative and say that there's nobody by the name of your husband yours, and she's a little bit lost in that moment, I thought that was the refusal of the call. And Agnes Demello's information that, ⁓ there is somebody called Bilal Damji used to work in our company. He had a very specific blood group, which is the Bombay Blood Group. to me that felt like crossing the threshold. okay, could be totally wrong. see where you're coming from. But the reason I would disagree with you here, it's because for me, crossing the threshold means the character taking active action. Getting information cannot be crossing the threshold, you only cross the threshold when you go and do something that as we discussed earlier gives you the stakes at hand. It makes it evident that this is what you're going up against. Very interesting. That's a great tip to anybody. Something a character actively does will become your crossing the threshold and not in terms of the pace of the movie. Not in terms of the information the character is receiving, which might make it seem that they're entering something unsorted. Yeah, it's when the character themselves does it either voluntarily or they're forced to it either or but they have to be active. Okay. So for the time the diffusion of the call I believe comes when Nawaz's character comes in he's introduced as this police officer. Why Vidya is not actively refusing the call she has been asked to refuse the call because Agnes Demello was shot. Right? That is a very clear sign that something is going wrong and Nawaz comes in and says, but out there is no Milan Damji, there is no Milan, there is no Milan. So he's telling her, refuse the call, refuse the call, refuse the call. And she then says, no, I'm not going to refuse the call. So then she thinks of the information Agnes de Mello had given her that there might be Milan Damji's physical records at the old NDC office. And that is crossing the threshold. when she and Satyoki or Rana's character, they go into the old NDC office and they retrieve those files. That is crossing the threshold because now they're saying we are becoming actively involved in the underbelly office. Earlier they were just doing what was okay on the surface, right? They were going and knocking on doors. They were speaking to people, perfectly fine. But now they're doing something transgressive. He even says, Like, he's and now he's the lock himself. Yeah. This shows that they're entering the underbelly and this is crossing the threshold, according to me. That makes total sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I'm glad. And I think crossing the threshold goes up until the stakes are established, which is the next scene, which is when Vidya had almost pushed off the Metro. Right. So and he pulls the bag and Bob with spouse, the contract killer pulls the bag. That is when the stakes are established that she's going to be losing one life. And we know that we have crossed the threshold we have entered this world that's a big chunk no that's quite a big chunk that is a big chunk yeah it it is ⁓ going to the old office to find Milan Damji's records then she goes and gives it to Khan and she says that's Nawaz's character and she says who is Milan Damji and ⁓ he says how did you get these papers and she said that's not the point you tell me who he is and then the next scene is where you where she goes to the metro station and she's almost pushed out. it's a sequence of three scenes. Pretty cool. So it's a sequence of crossing threshold. Yeah. Okay. And then we have the long sequence of tests, allies and enemies, which is going to Milan Damchi's house, learning that someone used to visit him, spotting Sridhar at the office, meeting the police informer, learning about the meeting between two random people who have no connection with in the story. just like, why is it here? You know the two who were shot at the blood group thing came up. I think they must have wanted to like use this Bombay blood group thing. And they must have wanted to create a sequence where Milandamji bleeds that he needs this. Yeah. some sort of stuff happened. Yeah. Yeah. that. Yeah. And then all the way up to Ganguly dying, Dr. Ganguly dying, where they go on to the quest of this Bombay blood group situation. So all these little challenges which are individually interesting, don't, but exist to kind of show you the world in which they are going to be faced in which they are facing and living all the challenges, right? Then we have the approach to be in a more scale and that is a very obvious scene, which is where they are being chased by Bob Biswas, where Vidya is being chased by Bob Biswas, who is the contract you know, and she is going to be shocked except that Bob Biswas is killed himself. Then you have the ordeal where they come across this character named Sridhar, they want to break into their office, his office. Sridhar comes to know him, he's coming to get them. There's a chase sequence. And in this sequence, Sridhar is also And this is killed by Vidya herself, right? she's... Vidya herself. Which I thought was quite a... That is the ordeal of her killing this dude. Dude, yeah. Then we have the reward, which is revealing that Khan was actually on their side on and on. Nawaz with character. He's not the bad guy, surprise, surprise. And... They're all going to be working on the same side now, even though Vidya has a little jaded that her sidekick, Satyaki, had been lined up all along. Yeah. So you'll be a line. You'll be a line now. I've matched with you on the journey because the reward here was that not for her, but that she comes to know that she is a mole in this bigger operation. Yeah. So yeah. Yay, we're aligned. And then you have the road back where the three of them start working together, they are hacking the computer, they find out and it goes all the way to them finding out a code on Sridhar's computer, which leads us to Bhaskaran, an old Indian band. have so many of these characters which I'll get into when we talk about the world. Indistinguishable characters. Yeah. They get a number that says Bhaskaran old. They call him and they realize that it is actually Milandamji who they're calling. And then you have the resurrection where Vidya says goes to meet Milandamji in the name of giving some evidence about Bhaskaran. And as that happens, she has the whole confrontation scene with Melandamji and she kills him. That is your resurrection. And then the return with the Alexa is the reveal of the real story of how Vidya is, how it connects to the opening image and finally lighting a candle at the memorial of the Metro event. Yeah, like she lights the candle at her husband's photograph. Photograph, yeah. Now that we've spoken about the hero's journey, do you want to get into scene techniques or character or what? Let's do scene techniques. I have noted down a few scenes and sequences which I thought were damn cool. And I thought they did it quite well in terms to create engagement because it's such a... this is a thriller, right? Like the moment if you lose your audience's engagement, the whole movie is gone. So the first sequence I want to talk about is the one where they go to access the, they go to find Milan Damji's records in the old office. ⁓ While we see Bob Biswas trying to also ⁓ find the same record. ⁓ So to me, I thought this scene was pretty cool because what could have happened is that looking for files could be such a boring sequence, right? ⁓ So bland anyway. So, and in the previous couple of scenes, they've established that this guy is a contract killer. He carries a gun with him. And if he is also at the same place where our main protagonist is, there's inherent threat to that. So the of setting up a ticking time bomb of sorts, ⁓ into such a bland activity inherently makes your scene quite engaging. Definitely. This is the same technique which we've discussed earlier. is Hitchcock's bomb under the table. Except now we are seeing it as two separate scenes where the bomb under the table is Bob Biswas's character who is coming to get them and these people are blind to that information and they are looking for the records in the hopes of not being caught without knowing that a serial killer is on there. not a serial killer but a contract killer is on their tail. And the reason this works, I remember when we talking about this, don't know in which film, you had said that you're always a little confused, right? About whether the audience should be given the information or not, in terms of that this is going to happen and this threat exists. And I think this scene, and I'm going to combine this with one more scene where they've used the same technique, which is when they are in Sridhar's office, and they're looking for his, and they're hacking his computer. At that time you intercut it with Shridhar who's in his car, he gets a notification that his system is being hacked and he's coming after them and then you intercut. The reason it works is because you're intercutting and you're creating tension. So you're making the audience feel like, ⁓ ab kya hone waar. It's only because the audience is ahead of the characters that they can feel a sense of fear which your characters can't Which is why these techniques work. That's pretty cool. And I want to also talk about because we're talking about the scene, just the scene that followed this is where she goes and tells Nawaz, Inspector Khan that see, you lied to me. You told me there's no Milan Damji. There's clearly a guy named Milan Damji. And after this, she comes to know whatever the history of this guy is. what could be the case. But what could have been a very talky scene, what they have done is that they've made us see with their back, she walked back from the police station, go to the Metro and throughout, you know, she is feeling scared, heartbroken, sort of like unaware, like what's going to happen to her. Like, and we hear all of the information in voiceover. ⁓ So I thought again, that was a little clever way of doing this because it could have been a very talky scene. They've cut down that time of them having a scene and she doing the walkthrough later on over some, I don't know, some music or just silence. And they've tried to merge that. And in this moment, you feel that she wonders what's going to happen to her without realizing and immediately they break that headspace by Bob Biswas Pusheenkar of the ⁓ metro station, you know? So I thought the sequence was very interestingly done. I think what you the word you want to use is very economically done. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Another scene I wanted to talk about was the opening scene. The opening image where we see the Calcutta train metro accident where the bottle is broken. What I want to talk about there is misdirection and how to create a good misdirection. And I am not going to talk about the scene as an example of a good misdirection. I'm going to talk about it as an example of how not to create a misdirection because it's a gimmick. So to create a misdirection, we know that this man is looking for a backpack which contains something inside it. And throughout the scene, we have focused on a kid who is carrying this backpack and holding onto it, cuddling it, ends up getting bullied. Because he's getting bullied, this man's attention goes to that kid to see what's in the backpack. Meanwhile, you have a separate woman who is with a baby in her arm. And she is the one who actually is carrying that bottle, which has this deadly liquid inside. And we have distracted the audience by talking about this kid when she's the actual culprit in the scene. The thing is, this kid doesn't come back in any foreseeable way in the next scene. He's not relevant. When you are creating a misdirection, even if you're creating the misdirection, for a character that's not relevant they still have to play a part within the scene this kid does not play a part within the scene it is purely a gimmick done for the audience to distract them which i thought was not cool over here i that information should have come back later in the story for example what they did do is they revealed that the man who was searching for this kid was actually her husband at end of the story so that connects but similarly the amount they focused on this kid I would expect them to say that this was her kid that's the only way you can justify spending so much time on this character in the opening image of your film otherwise it bears no relevance to the rest of the film it has just been done to distract the audience via the medium of the character And it is not okay to do this. Very interesting point. But recommend like, don't do this. Don't create this for the sake of it. You can get away with it because it's the opening scene and people let it go once they get invested in the character. But it's not good writing. Because I'm going to do a little bit of segue and ask you, how important do you think the opening image in this film was? ⁓ I'll tell you my reason for asking. Okay. When I had gone to see this movie back in 2012, me and my sister went for the movie and it was an early morning, 9.30 AM show or something. And like I've told you what happens with my family, we always reach the movie a little late. Okay. So I entered the movie with Debalin's characters walking out of the airport. I missed the opening image of the movie when I was watching it. And the movie still made very great sense to me. Like, so when I was watching it now for this, it got me thinking that what is the need for this? I'll tell you again more because it could have been a very simple story that all this woman has come into this world. She's looking for a missing husband while she's pregnant. only at that crossing the threshold moment when you know what you said, she comes to know that she's part of the bigger systems or there's something more going on. ⁓ because what it starts doing, now that we live in such a modern storytelling time, where cold opens are such a common thing in Netflix and Amazon Prime series, that you automatically start connecting two and two together. So I was thinking, ⁓ this is Vidya Balan, such a strong actress. she obviously has something more to do. Right? Like obviously I don't think this would have been a problem back in 2012. But now when I'm thinking about it, I'm constantly thinking, oh, it's got something to do connection. Yeah. So, but do you think that works in the favor of the story or does it backfire a little bit? I think they did need to set that up because at some point, I mean, the whole film hinges around the idea of this of solving what happened at the Kolkata Metro accident two years ago, right? So you have to set that up. You can't not set it up at some. But I believe that setting it up as a cold open was unnecessary and structurally they could have made a different choice because what this happens, what happens over here, is that they set that up and then they only bring it to its completion at end of the film. The Kolkata thingy is just hinted at through the rest of film. It's spoken about, you don't see it. So I think it creates a bit of a jarring experience to have it bookend the film in the opening and the closing. If I were writing it, assuming that I'm a writer who still has the objectivity while I'm so deep into the weeds of this film to be able to do something like this, what I would have done is seated it in slowly that this happened, this happened. So that it is a constant thread through the film. Vis-a-vis it coming so suddenly in the opening and so suddenly in the closing and you're just getting a sense that, okay, this guy was, this Minal Damdi was responsible for that. What could have been even smarter was that with what if Vidya's character didn't know it that this this incident had happened. So she also in real time comes to know, ⁓ like this is something which happened that could have been a like those scenes could have been information for her as well as the audience. You know, ⁓ that's true. But then your reveal wouldn't land at the end because the whole point is it's a kahaani that she knew what she was going to do. So she spun this whole web of lies, right? I'm saying she could, like her character could have been acting that, ⁓ I didn't know this, you know, because, ⁓ okay. Because if she's like, you know, she's come from whatever London or somewhere, like it would have been fully believable for her character. like, ⁓ no, I don't know this, you know? So as and when she is coming to know from people, that's when the audience could also know, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's on the information of the wheel and she's pretending that she didn't know. Got it. And then another simple technique I wanted to point out, which is common for films like these, is giving the audience information. Exposition technique is when you have a character who is at the same level of information as your audience. What they're going to do at this point is be taken through a scene where everything is explained to the character and similarly to the audience. So when Vidya Balan lands and she goes to the police station and she talks about the case to the policemen, The policemen and the audience are at the same level of information, so the exposition works. You can give exposition in the way in which it has been given over here in the scene by saying, happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. Ideally, in a normal exposition scene, you can't say this happened, this happened, this happened, because the character usually has this information, so it's repetitive. It's not how you talk in real life, but in a scene like this, it perfectly works to give exposition. Right. OK. That is what I have in terms of, no, I have check off gun, which I want to point out, set up and pay off. So check off gun is a technique where you establish some information and data on that information has been used. My favorite way of doing it was it Bob Biswas, the contract in his character, where they show that he's hustling and puffing up the stairs. His cardio fitness is shit. And later on, he'll go. to kill Vidya Balan in that chase sequence his heart, his cardio gives out on him would not survive the apocalypse and he collapses like that really slows him down so I thought that was very well done and the other Chekov's gun is that she had solved she had fixed their computer in the police station scene in the start and then later on they use that the guides of her fixing the computer so that they're able to withdraw the records of the shootout scene Right? So those are two check-outs garnered, which I I spotted in the film. Pretty cool. There was one more thing, which I think these are two different moments in the film, which come towards the end. So what I thought that the moment, you know, where she's come to know that she is the mole in this bigger operation. And she has those moments where, you know, she is crying in her room, she's feeling sad and lonely, and she's walking all alone and all of that. Like, obviously, all that is shown to create empathy for your character, that, oh, now what will happen to this poor girl? All of that. But at the same, but at the same time, the filmmaker knows that the big reveal is coming. So. that she was not pregnant, that it was all a cover. So I thought the timing of it was so intentionally done that you create these feelings of almost pity for this pregnant woman. So even when from the police station she's going back home, they have the onset of the Durga Puja sequence, where there are families here and there. And if you notice closely, that entire montage is focused only around children. Like you have like the father lifting the children on the shoulder. He's playing with it. The entire montage is just played from the person. Like you focus more mainly on the children. And so you're sort of starting to feel bad for this key. ⁓ my God, she's going to become like, she's going to deliver a kid without the father. We don't know what's going to happen. And at the same time, we have also cognizant of the fact that she's going to get killed, you know, like So I thought that was done very nicely because very in the next five to ten minutes you're to come to know that ⁓ this was all a cover up. So I thought that our intention was very nice but at the same time I have a biggest pet peeve in films is that sometimes they'll show these scenes of her alone, her crying only to know it was a cover up that I was thinking Who was she doing this drama for? Like, her room? is chis kila naatak, you know? And in the end, they do make it clarify that, you know, for the long, for I started believing I actually was pregnant again, you know? Yeah. I know what you, I know that expression when you say like, felt like a little bit of a retrofit to me. Yeah, it is. That's the fight. But it's still I thought it was better. It's done than not done, you know, because I always end up thinking in at least some character who's hiding at least in their alone time, they wouldn't be that, you know, but that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what to call For sure. Yeah. But yeah, this was the observation in these two, across these sequences. So I agree with you that they have retrofitted that idea that I started believing I was pregnant. But it would have landed even if they hadn't tried to so hard to clarify their intentions and just said that she was reliving the whole loss of her husband. I would have completely believed that because he has come here to unravel the mystery and punish the man who calls her husband dead. And That was causing a lot of pain and that's she was crying. Imagine like being embroidered in that situation all over again. But this will retrofit the kind of justify her crying. So, but the segue to use your point as a segue of what you essentially said was creating a contradiction, Like of extremes. That first they're going to be creating this sadness out of that. And then to reveal that, ⁓ this, she's actually a woman on a mission. So I would segue into character for that because they've also used this technique with Nawaz's character. Where they have off the bat established him as this bad guy. Like in his introduction scene with Vidya, what does he do? He screams at her, he talks over her, he refuses to stop smoking in front of a pregnant woman. He gaslights her. So or he established in the worst possible way. ⁓ If you think about it. But the reason they do this is otherwise the impact of him being a good guy doesn't So to create that impact, they have to take him to one extreme and then bring him back to another extreme. But while they've done that, the abrasiveness of his character doesn't go away. He's still very abrasive. So I thought that contradiction of creating that impact and reveal really worked. It's a good character technique of showing another facet of a character. Yeah, interesting. I also thought that it was intensely done to like to have to have to have the audience but also have a very strong force against with their bachis character. Like in the sense that, ⁓ you know, the entire world was looking at her at this pretty full lens and Yeah, we didn't expect in her mission that somebody would behave like this. So even we never clock her expression that, he's being nasty towards me. But from an audience point of view, you're also like, OK, like that, like. It's not going to be the same. It's going to be not going to be the easiest route, like what she had in my room. Yeah, like it's not that's not getting active here. They've created a file in his character. That's what they've done. Everyone is feeling bad for her. They're saying that he's a representation of the forces of ruthless forces that are coming after her. Correct. Because it's only after his character is introduced that we see Bob Biswas go after her, almost push him, push her, all that. So I think that character is kind of a representation of all the conflict. and jeopardy she has to face going forward. Yeah. And one more character thing that I noted, which I really like, it's very small, but in creating an ally character. we have two police officers in the first scene, which we meet, Rana and Satyoki, who becomes our main sidekick character. And the second is the slightly chubbier police officer, whose name I don't recall. Yeah, but what I really like is they've created a very good ally in that Chabi policeman character. And I'll point out how they've done this. ⁓ What's interesting about it? The fact that when Nawaz is grilling Vidyat's character, Satyuki comes in late and they send him into the lines then. That Chabi character sends Satyuki and saying, arey, like he's grilling her, he's punishing her, go check on her. When they know that he's not supposed to be in there. Right? So it shows that they're playing around with him a little bit. You know, they fuck with him. But later when Nawaz comes and yells at Satyaki for interrupting him, this guy tries to defend him and says, no, no, like, let him be, you know, it's okay. And this has a good payoff later on when Nawaz asks Satyaki to be under observation. He keeps a man on his tail to make sure that he doesn't go and tell Vidya that he's making Vidya badi ka bakhra. But at this point, we've seen that this chubby character is actually, while he might bully Satyaki's character, is actually on his side. It has been established in this prior scene. So he goes and creates that little distraction so that Satyaki can even go warn Vidya's character that she's going to be in danger. So they've created an ally character who's not just a boring ally character, you know, like, ⁓ I will make sure everything goes right for you. He also puts him into trouble that gives him a layer. And this is a good way of creating character, creating personality for a bit player rich character by showing two sides that I'm an ally, but I'm also fun. So it makes it more human and it makes it more interesting. This is a good example of creating a bit player. Yeah. Yeah. I have a question for you because I haven't been able to crack it about this film that Satyaki's character, obviously like they've made that correlation that he You know, his name is urgent, like the urgent chariot, you know, that. so, you know, he's going to drive her down, whatever that correlation they did. Yeah. But they tried to develop like a subplot of there being romantic tension between them a little bit. Now, which was an interesting choice to me from a character point of view, because, you know, you never think in these kind of or in what the world that a pregnant woman could somebody like, you know, somebody would look at her from that lens. So interesting character choice. But my question is, why did they need it in the first place? Like, it's not like she she orchestrated it because she never tried to be sexy or anything or like she never tried to flirt with him. She just wanted like an accomplice in her mission, you know. But yeah. Yeah, I find it. I found it very strange and interesting at the same time. Yeah, I couldn't quite put that together because he could have wanted to have rescued her at the end, even without him having a crush on her. That would have in fact made him a stronger character. He's not motivated by love, but by a sense of moral like that. So I don't know, part of me thinks that just because know, Bollywood films always need to have a certain romance angle going to it. There very few films, especially back in 2012. where romance is not a part of it. It's just what you go to the movies to expect. I don't know why it's there. Maybe there's something we're not seeing because it's somewhere works in the film. I understand the merit of it. But I'm from a storytelling point of view, I'm trying to understand its placement in the film. So the next thing I wanted to talk about was a quick dialogue. I don't have a lot in terms of dialogue. I just have one and I'm pretty sure you may have the same note on it. which is the dialogue in the start of the film where Satyaki is driving Vidya to the hotel and she says, and he says, my two names are my dark name, which is my nickname, Yudrana and my nickname, which is my real name is Satyaki. Now I want to analyze this from several like points of views. not just the first obvious one is the three, right? Where ⁓ Vidya Bannan says, yeh kaal bhi ke yeh do pehchaan aur do identity, two sides of the same person, which is literally what the theme of the story is. They have established it here. ⁓ The other thing I want to talk about is a thing which filmmakers can use in films and they often do, which makes the audience feel a little more intelligent coming out of the film, is giving a fun fan. This is called a gift, which is given within a film. when an audience learns something about the world, which they can then go on and like, but even then, you know that now you know a certain thing about Bengali culture, which is dark now. Like I even knew was this going forward. And I thought when you are exploring a new world, yet you're you have the world to create conflict on a bat. But you're also the idea of film and stories is to broaden our perspective, right? Of the world. So I think giving these audience gifts like this is something that's a filmmaker we should endeavor to do. We should endeavor to enlighten people a little bit through the course of entertainment. Like we've done this beautifully through theme, through a wonderful dialogue. It would have been nice if they had a USS in the plot later. For example, there had been some confusion between who's Nana, who's Satyaki, and that could have created conflict within the plot. That would have been even more interesting. But the fact that I came out knowing the speech of information about Bengali culture, which I wouldn't have otherwise, was a good takeaway for me. And I think something I will use in the film, like to help my audience feel more enlightened, like going forward is that right? You know, but I do think they use it somewhere in the film is because when Vidya Bagchi's character, she's been told by Inspector Khan that Milan Milan Milan, koi nahi Milan, you know, and she goes and talks to Satyuki about it that you're saying people use generally the dark name, you know, when they are referring to but he said specifically Milan Milan Milan like that it creates a suspicion in her mind that if he was so against this guy, how is he on almost like a first name basis with him, you know, so I do think they tried to use it a little bit ⁓ in the movie. And it again comes as a payoff in the very end when, ⁓ when, she writes it on the envelope. Thank you, Satyuki. And the character is like, who is Satyuki? And she's like, it's me. ⁓ So, ⁓ yeah, they have used it. right. Yeah. They tried. I do think what you're saying could have happened more. I think like ⁓ they could have, I don't know what could have been very clever is that if they tried to do something about Arnaud and Milan's name as something, you know, because you're confusing them for faces, why not the names now? You know, when you establish that. For sure. Then I had one tiny note on the world, which is very small, where I thought the conflict was a very momentary passing conflict was well derived from the world. When she goes into the hotel in the start and she says, show me the records and he pulls up like paper wana khata and she's like, computer nahi hai kya? And he's just like, madame yeh guest house hai, yeh 5 star hotel nahi hai, yaha sab matlab computer, computer, I think, is pay hota hai. I thought the concept was very well derived from the word that they put her in the world of a guest house and not having a computer with part for the course and that would create conflict. And yeah, do you have anything else on the word? I want to talk about a little bit about the city of Kolkata in the sense how it's been used in the film and at a very specific point of time, like So the city is at its peak when during the Durga Puja festivals. So to juxtapose that at the time, which is almost going to be the peak of her life's mission into that time, I thought was quite well juxtaposed. And there's a little bit about the theme of the film about which they said it in the very end. They brought that, you know, how Durga's role in this world was that she comes every year, she fights the evil and goes away. So that idea in the end, I thought was quite sweetly put in because now having worked enough in this industry, we know how much people love to put in the mythological reference or something of that sort, you know, because as a country, are so huge on mythology, like it really connects with the audience immediately. So Even if that wasn't there in the end of the film, the film would have totally worked. I think adding this very small correlation hit in some way, elevated the story, which I think is the perfect balance of putting this. Like it's not hammy, it's not a force, and it just comes very organic to the story. And at the same time, that whole sequence in the end of the last day of the Durga Puja, which is, know, sort of this celebration of women. And, know, it's it almost talks about how that's like peak femininity in some way. And that again, to juxtapose with the climax of your film, you know, I thought was very interesting because I this year was the first year I went to a Pooja Pandas for the first time in my life. No, Bengali folks love calling it pandil. They say it pandil. Yeah, yeah. My friend Nandini, Nandini Gupta shout out. She was the one who told me like they used to call it pandil. so I'm like, okay, then I shall say that too now when I'm referring about your festivals. So and when she was taking me around, she told me about the significance of the festival and how, you know, the last day signified sort of So essentially the festival meant that it's homecoming for the goddess. Like she comes to the home of her mother during the festival and the last day is when she's gonna leave. So like, women are celebrating but also crying at the same time. it's a very, like, it's the experience of being a woman. ⁓ And I thought it was very nicely used for the climax of the film. because we couldn't have ever anticipated that this character has gone through something like this and she had to take the matters in her own hand. So I thought that was beautifully done in this sequence. Yeah. Then I to talk about, I thought I wanted to talk about plot in this film, but I want to talk about how plot plays out on the screen and how they've done it in this film. So because this is a thriller and a mystery all rolled into one, there is very significant plotting happening, right? Now, first I would like to go behind the scenes, not on the page. If I were in a writer's room doing this, how I would have this mapped out is if I had a physical space is I'd have like a pin board with like images, names, all of that and silly string going across it, you know, connecting everything, right? Now that's what you do in such a plot heavy film from a writer's point of view. I'm not talking about what you see on screen. Right? Cause you need to know what role every person is clearly playing so that you can write with clarity on the page. Now that clarity is very hard to bring onto the page because of the simple fact that there is so much information and exposition going on there. Right? So when you want to bring that clarity onto the page, you to do this. Either you use a visual aid, you can literally, which a lot of films do, is have silly string and have that pin board, all of that, and connect and go like, and at every stage, you go back to the police investigation room, you put that pin board on there and you say that, okay, this is connected to this, it's connected. So as the characters are stringing it together, it also gets stuck in your audience's head. So they're on the same page as the character. They could have done that in the start. but they chose not to. They chose to use another technique which is where they elicit emotion. They don't expect the audience to remember everything that's going on and connect the dots. They say come on this journey with us and believe us based on what we make you feel. Because let's take the characters of like Tyaki, Shri, Bhaskaran. At some point even Bajpai who at the end is a good guy. These are all three indistinguishable male characters to me. I have no idea what role they play in the film, why are they there, nothing. But when they come in, some character reacts to that information. Okay Bhaskaran is this, ⁓ okay Tyagi is So what they do when Tyagi comes onto the screen is that as soon as Tyagi has his first scene, Agnes de Mello is murdered. So they are not giving you information that Tiaogi is this guy, though they do put little super on screen to give you his designation. But in terms of good or bad, they create this emotion. They're like, we introduced Tiaogi and then this person is killed. So in your head, you have to think they're a bad guy. Right? So this is what they do. They don't map it out for you. They tell you what to feel and they manipulate you based on how you're So I think... when you have such an information heavy film story, yeah, it's a function of medium, right? Like if I were doing this in a series and you have more time to explore this, I would probably use visual aids to keep the character engaged. So it almost feels like they're solving a puzzle. They are detectives themselves. But sure, they didn't want to put you in the shoes of the detective. They wanted you to, they wanted to put you in the shoes of Vidya's character as a feeling moment. So this is why they've created emotion to carry the plot forward, vis-a-vis information to carry the plot And what you're quite right, because a lot of the information also does come very conveniently. Like, it's not a who done it and how done it in that way, because they have quite conveniently used the character of an informant, you know? Yeah. Right, on a series, you would sort of go on... follow the informant and how he found it out. But you're right, it's a film of like they want us to clock Vidya's journey rather than like the mechanisms of this world. World, yeah. Because a lot of the information comes out quite conveniently. And the final point I had was about the tone of the film, which is what you touched on. very briefly earlier when you said there are always kids, know, in the Durga Puja sequence. Throughout this film, they've used a lot of kids, right? From the opening sequence where the kid with the backpack is there to the running hot water kid to the guy with the t-stone who's also... Polto. Polto, yes. And I agree that ⁓ it's to drive home her motherhood and all of that, like to remind her of the fact that she used to... she was going to be a mother, but also what this is at its core a family story. This is the story of a woman losing her husband. And the world of the thriller and the dirty dark system can be so all consuming that you can forget that this is a family story. So they have very intentionally, I believe, brought kids into the film to give it that form of levity. to be able to remind you that this is not about exploring the deep tough workings of the system, but it is about remembering what it's like to have family. So this is what I believe the role the kids were playing in this film. No, bang on. That's a very astute observation. think that totally makes sense. So this is the end of all my notes on Kahani. Do you have anything more? No notes. No more notes. No more notes. So we have given everyone all our notes, good notes. Areas of improvement, which only we can see because we weren't part of the writer's room. If we were part of the writer's room, we would have signed off everything that's ⁓ done in the making of this film. Another phenomenal film from Bollywood. Okay, everyone. Thank you for watching another episode of Breakdown Besties. I hope you're following along, watching the film and making the most of it and writing down your own observations when you're with us. if you agree, disagree, like, dislike, you know the drill, leave it all down in the comments, like, share, subscribe and join us for the next episode. Hi again, Bestie. For our next week, we have another with Diabalan film. in completely different genre. This is horror comedy. The film we're gonna be breaking down is Bulbulaya. Yeah. So see you next Thursday.