More than a decade after his searing debut Titli shook audiences with its quirky yet raw depiction of a dysfunctional Delhi family, filmmaker Kanu Behl returns with Agra—an unsettling, deeply intimate exploration of human repression and identity. Having travelled through the global festival circuit and premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival in 2023, the award-winning film is finally set for its India release on November 14.
Agra goes deep into the mindscape of confinement. The film revolves around Guru, a sexually repressed young boy, who lives in a small, overcrowded house in Agra. He sleeps in the same room as his mother, with his father living on the upper floor with a mistress. With the only available space being the terrace, Guru insists that he loves Mala, an imaginary girl, and will marry her and live with her in a room on the terrace.
“The more I thought about relationships around me, the more I realised how desire in our society is inextricably linked with transaction. This makes the relationships around us incredibly fragile,” reflects Behl. “In a country of 1.4 billion people, we’re all packed tightly like sardines, fighting for space and survival. And so, our desires, too, get limited by the transactions we’re able to make. Once I understood this dialectic, I knew I had a film at hand.”
Alongside an eclectic ensemble of actors, Agra also features Aashiqui star Rahul Roy in a comeback. Roy, Behl says, was “a magical find who brought a fierce, seething anger” to his role. “I was always looking for the right human being with the right residual energy to inhabit these parts,” he says.
Born to theatre veterans Lalit and Navnindra Behl, Kanu was exposed to the creative hum of the stage at an early age. “I remember growing up in the wings of theatre performances my parents were directing or acting in,” he recalls. “Something about the darkness and silence before everything began was, perhaps, what first drew me in.”
After studying direction at SRFTI, Behl spent years in documentary filmmaking. “Directing documentaries killed my ego,” he says. “I realised film is a collaborative process that rewards you more when you let go of control.”
Despite an impressive profile of acclaimed works, Behl says the gap between his first and second features was far from easy. “I would be wrong if I said that I did not have multiple moments of doubt and bouts of depression during this long, exhaustive journey. There were many days when I woke up feeling I had perhaps bitten more than I could chew in attempting a film about desire and sexuality,” Behl admits. “But every setback had a silver lining. Somewhere I kept faith that Agra belongs to the people and that there is an audience for it, ready to watch their story being told fearlessly.”
Behl’s other recent work includes Despatch, starring Manoj Bajpayee, which delves into the complex world of crime journalism. “I will keep looking for stories that have fallen by the wayside and are waiting to be told,” he shares.
Behl is not one who likes to be seen, as he insists on remaining “unseen as a filmmaker”. He would instead like his films to have an identity of their own. “What matters is the film, and not the telltale marks of anyone’s journey,” he says firmly.
