Cinema buffs and those who watch television shows will be familiar with “breaking the fourth wall” — an actor looks into the camera and speaks directly to the audience, most often to make a snarky comment. Now an overused technique, it was popularised by Kevin Spacey in House Of Cards. Sometimes, continuous voiceovers are also used but both techniques indicate a director who is not confident of his visual narration doing all the talking. Sonam Kapoor’s Khoobsurat (2014) had the annoying ploy of all her thoughts being vocally articulated in the background, which was overdone and jarring. Anil Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor’s recent production Thank You For Coming also has Bhumi Pednekar’s voiceover commentary, unnecessary if the story can flow through the scenes. Right now, there’s a Jimmy Shergill show called Choona on Netflix that has an unending voiceover by Arshad Warsi (not part of the acting cast), which irritatingly replicates what the viewer can see unfolding on the screen.

Breaking the fourth wall being an outdated tool, it was astonishing to find Vishal Bhardwaj use it for his thriller series Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley on SonyLiv. Based on Agatha Christie’s The Sittaford Mystery, he cast Wamiqa Gabbi in the title role of a Punjaban detective. Wamiqa, incidentally, has been making quite an impression on OTT platforms ever since she played a saucy courtesan from pre-Partition Lucknow in the Prosenjit-led web series Jubilee (on Prime Video). However, Wamiqa’s act as Charlie Chopra grated on one’s nerves every time she looked into the camera and swore in Punjabi. Disappointing that a maker as celebrated as Vishal Bhardwaj used the fourth wall like a pesky novice.

But, when you ponder on it, is Vishal the cinematic genius his image makes him out to be? Perhaps certain external factors, like his long association with an intellectual like Gulzar, may have had something to do with it. In fact, the first one heard of Vishal Bhardwaj was when he scored the music for Gulzar’s film Maachis (1996) and his song Chappa chappa charkha chale topped the charts for many years. Tabu had top-lined Maachis, a prophetic film on the rise of Sikh insurgency in Punjab, perhaps Vishal’s first introduction to her, after which she worked in many of his films, from Maqbool (2003) and Haider (2014) to Khufiya, his latest spy thriller for Netflix.

Vishal’s initial forays as director were with small, delightful films like Makdee (2002) starring Shabana Azmi and Shweta Basu Prasad, who was then a child artiste, and Gulzar had written the lyrics for him. Whatever the scale or tone of Vishal’s films thereafter, Gulzar has always been on board as lyricist. From Maqbool and Omkara (2006), even the children’s film The Blue Umbrella (2005), to Haider, Rangoon (2017) and Khufiya, the personal and professional bond between Gulzar and Vishal has only grown and strengthened with time. It was Vishal who had sparked off the idea of making Talvar (2015), a film on the Aarushi murder case that he produced and Gulzar’s daughter Meghna directed.

With eight National Awards to his credit, Vishal certainly has the aura of an A-lister. Apart from his association with Gulzar, his own talent for composing music and his fondness for turning literary classics (mostly Shakespeare, also Ruskin Bond) and thriller novels (Agatha Christie and Amar Bhushan) into cinema have contributed to the cerebral reputation. But, however critically acclaimed his works have been, Vishal has never scored too well at the box office.

In the last two weeks, his web series Charlie Chopra and his film Khufiya have been on two different platforms. OTT is a haven for filmmakers like Vishal who can escape the harsh verdict of the box office.

By the way, Vishal too has succumbed to today’s demand for normalising the LGBTQ community. Like Vidya Balan had an unnecessary gay angle in Neeyat, Tabu can tick off “lesbian” on her list of roles performed after playing a RAW agent who’s inclined towards women in Khufiya. And the transgender continues to make an appearance everywhere — from Nikkhil Advani’s second season of Mumbai Diaries to Bhumi Pednekar’s Thank You For Coming. The LGBTQ community is here to stay.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author