Vidhu Vinod Chopra wrote, directed and produced this intriguing murder mystery, which takes place in northeast India on location with a Hindi film unit. Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar and Soni Razdan all play themselves, and there is much gentle poking-of-fun at the Hindi movie world—changes to the script midstream, casting couch propositions, artist rivalries and insecurities. The “filmi insider” ambiance adds a whole new dimension to this stylish whodunit.
As the murders pile up, the twists and turns of the story are surprising, and everyone becomes a suspect. I love murder mysteries, especially of the British-village variety, and this feels just like that, only with a setting that I find even more engaging, and characters who are also real people. So much fun!
We meet members of the cast and crew as they film on the banks of a rushing river. Shabana and Amol are the stars, with Soni playing Shabana’s character’s sister who has committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree.
Take after retake after retake culminates in mutiny on Soni’s part and after the director Chandran (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) has a brainstorm (instead of suicide, Soni’s character will, ominously, be murdered) they pack up for the day.
That evening the producer, Dayal (Ajit Vachhani) throws a party at the hotel where they are all staying to celebrate Shabana’s recent National Award and Amol’s burgeoning political career.
As the poor script writer scribbles away in a corner, we gain some insight into the relationships within the unit. Soni asks Amol to lobby on her behalf with Dayal for the starring part in Dayal’s next film, which doesn’t go over well with Leela (Sushma Seth), a character actress harboring starry aspirations for her own daughter Meenu. Dayal’s drug-addicted brother Kuku (Pankaj Kapur in a creepy, creepy role) has a crush on Soni and resents Dayal’s advances towards her, which to be fair she doesn’t exactly welcome either, despite her career insecurities.
She gives him a tight slap, and storms off. As Dayal shouts threats at her (he’s drunk) the director hurries after her with the script changes in hand. He asks her to rehearse for the next day’s shoot, which she does—so loudly that Amol finally knocks on her door to ask her to rehearse in the boathouse away from the guest rooms where people are trying to sleep.
In the boathouse, when her pleas for help become real rather than rehearsed, nobody notices.
The next day filming resumes, and someone is sent to look for her when she doesn’t show up on set. She is eventually spotted, however, by Shabana—hanging from the same tree in defiance of the new script. She’s really dead, this time, though. Her death is written off by the police as suicide, and Soni is cremated with her fellow thespians looking on.
Several days later, however, a man (Naseeruddin Shah) arrives by bus and goes straight to the police station, where he asks the officer on duty questions about Soni’s death.
He seems unconvinced on the verdict of suicide and sets off for the hotel; the police officer calls to warn the hotel manager that a CID inspector is on the way. Word spreads quickly (via a weird staff member who steals things from the guests’ rooms while they are out) to the film unit. It’s not long before the CID inspector has visitors bringing gossip.
That night, he follows Shabana after she passes under his window. In the morning he walks to the set with Amol and Shabana, and she says she slept all night. Amol tells him that Soni was rehearsing in the boat house the night of her death. On set, the dark side of the glamour world comes to light. They are filming the rape scene of Meenu, and the director, producer and male crew members sit back and enjoy the show. As Meenu grows more and more distressed, Shabana gets angry and asks why the director doesn’t shout “Cut.” When one guy tells her that they are “making a woman of her” Shabana slaps him, hard.
Ooh, enemies are being made left and right! Meenu is in tears, crying that she doesn’t want to be an actress. Her pushy mother drags her back to their room and lectures her about her bright future.
This is overheard by our friendly CID inspector too. As the guests are called for dinner, Kuku shoots up and passes out; Shabana jokes with Amol about not knowing “anything about politics” and the unitwala whom she had slapped that afternoon washes blood off his hands into a white sink. After dinner, Shabana showers as the film “Psycho” plays on TV; a shadowy figure stands outside the shower watching her.
The book by her bedside is “The Godfather.” She slides in and picks up a magazine, then feels something sticky on her hand—blood. Her screams bring the CID inspector, Amol, Dayal and several others to her room; they find a beheaded chicken in her bed. Later the CID inspector sees Shabana again, walking in the night.
She’s sleepwalking; Chandran tells him that the whole unit knows that she does it, especially when she’s under stress. The next day he gets the keys for all the rooms from the Hotel Manager and begins methodically searching the film unit members’ rooms. He finds a single earring hidden under the mattress in Leela’s room, and when he later searches the boathouse he finds the matching earring next to some burnt snippets of Soni’s dialogue script.
Shabana identifies the earrings as Soni’s and confirms that she was wearing them the night she died. She sees the burnt pieces of dialogue and remembers that Soni was screaming in English, whereas the script is all Hindi.
At dinner that night he shows the earrings to Leela, who is visibly shaken. Before he can get anything out of her, though, the police arrive to arrest him for impersonating a CID officer!
At the station Colonel Bakshi (his real name) points out that he never said he was a CID officer, but that everyone—starting with the police—made assumptions. He said nothing because it made his poking around easier. He is Soni’s brother, and had received a very cheerful letter from her the day she died; he is positive she wouldn’t have committed suicide. He shows the police the earrings, and they set off for the hotel to question Leela.
At the hotel, Leela is waiting for Dayal in the boathouse. I shout “Meet him in the lobby!” but she pays no attention.
Surprise! She is murdered too. Who has killed her? Dayal? One of the other unit members? A hotel staffer? Or maybe a random crazy stranger? Will anyone else be killed? (Here’s a hint: yes.)
Watch Khamosh to find out the resolution of this mystery. It’s not perfect; but it is really engrossing and atmospheric. I was actually scared, although—granted—I am easily scared (however, not usually by Hindi films). The acting is great, especially Naseer’s and there’s a lot of humor sprinkled throughout the thrills. It’s paced well (about 90 minutes), and is full of surprises too. And it’s a lot of fun to see what goes on behind the scenes on a location shoot.
Watch for Sudhir Mishra (director of Chameli, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, and Khoya Khoya Chand among others); he plays one of the cameramen on the unit.
MemsaabStory 