Berlin: Spy drama that is too ‘real’ for its own good

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Cinema audiences beware! Just like some films are critic-proof, this spy drama is almost audience-proof, as in audiences looking at engrossing, edge-of-the seat spy dramas. Yes, I know that in mainstream cinema globally, such films usually have a couple of templates with some variations, but when so much “realism” (and also some truly convenient fiction) is shown, one would definitely prefer to experience it in book form rather than on screen. An audiovisual experience must primarily be worth your senses’ while!

And so, while many audience members may end up not caring for the film and its plotline, there may be others who will not fathom and thus appreciate how and why two sections of the Indian intelligence agencies itself would be so pathologically against each other, even to the extent of dealing with foreign spies, and making innocent people, who are dragged into their murky vortex, to suffer. Oh, I forgot, the film is set in the troubled India of 1993, when Kashmir was burning and after the Cold War had ended.

Ashok Kumar (Ishwak Singh) is a suspect for the Bureau. A deaf mute since birth, he has been working at the Berlin Café in Delhi’s Connaught Place, where apparently the workers in various foreign embassies and governmental departments meet and even exchange classified information. The café apparently employs only deaf mutes, who are instructed to occupy the vacant seats (an absurdity of no mean proportions) so that they cannot hear anything of what is going on, and they are placed in a way that the occupants of a table also cannot hear anyone else’s conversation.

Ashok has now been arrested by the Bureau (said to be having a “Soviet Desk”) as he is suspected of being a spy. The Bureau head-honcho (Kabir Bedi) instructs Sondhi (Rahul Bose) to employ Pushkin (Aparshakti Khurana), a simple teacher in a government institute for deaf mutes, to interrogate him in sign language to know the truth.

Pushkin soon finds that there is danger to him and his family (based far away) and there are wheels within dirty wheels even as he gradually forms a bond with Ashok Kumar. He is even temporarily kidnapped and threatened by the agents of the Wing, led by J.V. Raman (Deepak Qazir Kejriwal) who want him to work within the Bureau for the Wing while interrogating his subject.

There is also a missing mysterious woman (Anupriya Goenka) and the other agents on both sides are involved in a massive game of one-upmanship. And all this is in aid of an impending visit by the Russian president for a space technology deal that the USA is frowning at, and a plot to assassinate him on Indian soil. And as things heat up, the good and the bad folks almost get interchanged and Pushkin has a lot to learn by way of truths and lessons.

The one jarring point about this film is the way director Atul Sabharwal (of Aurangzeb, which was a decent film that never connected with the audience 11 years ago) seems to have changed his approach to filmmaking. This is the same man who, in an interview then, had told me, “Emotions have no economic barriers. A Manmohan Desai film was loved by all because of that. Why are we hell-bent on fighting with the masses? The masses are always evolved as an audience!”

What has changed now, Mr. Sabharwal? You are right, the masses have become even more evolved. And they can accept different subjects provided they are riveting: do check the hits of the intervening years!

I, for one, am okay with a spy movie that is not frenetic, action-packed and more. But I want to be on the edge in them, not restless, as in after the first half of this 119-minute thriller.

The only standout aspects of Berlin, besides the technical side, are the performances. Ishwak Singh is fantastic as Ashok Kumar, and his expressions are simply amazing. Aparshakti Khurana is correctly over-simple, panicky, resolute and whatever other shades his character (well-written like Ishwak’s) has to show. Rahul Bose comes across exactly as the devious snake he is supposed to be. Anupriya Goenka makes a striking cameo, and of the rest, everyone was effective.

Wish this drama was too!

Rating: **

ZEE5 presents Zee Studios &  Yippee Ki Yay Motion Pictures’ Berlin  Produced by: Umesh Kr Bansal & Manav Shrivastav Written & Directed by: Atul Sabharwal  Music: K Starring: Aparshakti Khurana, Ishwak Singh, Anupriya Goenka, Rahul Bose, Kabir Bedi, Joy Sengupta, Nitesh Pandey, Ujjwal Chopra, Deepak Qazir Kejriwal, Jigar Mehta, Ritesh Shrivas, Prashant Singh, Ritesh Singh, Vivek Tandon & others