Berlin is not a ‘bottle film’ — aka a film whose action completely takes place in one confined space — but it wouldn’t be a stretch to call it one. Reason? The most intriguing moments in it take place in an interrogation room in which two people communicate only through sign language. One of them is deaf-mute, a man arrested by the Indian intelligence, known simply as the ‘Bureau’, on the suspicion of being a spy. The urgency in interrogating him is courtesy the fact that the Russian premier is scheduled to visit New Delhi within a few days. The Bureau senses something is afoot and this man named Ashok Kumar (Ishwak Singh), a kind of John Doe, knows more than what he is letting on.
The other man at the other end of the table in the interrogation room is Pushkin Verma. Named after the Russian poet and playwright Alexander Pushkin who his dad was a keen follower of, Pushkin (Aparshakti Khurana), his uncommon name apart, is an Everyman. He is a sign-language teacher in a local school for the deaf-mute who is yanked out of his job and thrust into this situation. Keeping a hawk-eye on the duo is Bureau officer Jagdish Sondhi (Rahul Bose), a wily and impatient man who does all he can to prevent Pushkin from developing a connection beyond the interrogation with Ashok.
The room is cold and bare with grey walls. The two men are always dressed in muted tones. The setting could belong to any era, but director Atul Sabharwal opts for the early 1990s. It is significant to the plot of the film. The Cold War has just ended, the Soviet Union has broken up and the Berlin Wall has been felled. It is a crucial and contentious period in world history.
The Berlin in the title, however, doesn’t refer to the German capital. It is the name of a cafe in Delhi, much like Calcutta’s coffee house, but newer looking. It is here that men (and women) meet, talk in hushed tones, hatch conspiracies and sometimes sip on ‘ginger tea’.
Sabharwal, who last directed Class of ‘83, gets the intrigue in Berlin, streaming on Zee5, right, though this slow-burn thriller does take its time to grow on you. This is a rare spy drama where daredevil stunts, par for the course in this genre, are missing. Even when punches are resorted to, they are unremarkable, sometimes even resembling an amateur street fight. But Berlin doesn’t aspire to be a slick spy film; its intention and execution is more cerebral.
Like Class of ‘83, Sabharwal is spot-on with the setting. The atmospherics are built on in the interrogation room with Pushkin developing an affinity for Ashok, who he realises has been made a pawn, as it happens almost all the time, whether in cinema or in life. The interactions between the two get more personal — even as Sondhi (the significance of Bose’s Hitler-like moustache is not lost here) keeps barking orders on the mic from outside. In this powerplay between various factions, Pushkin’s personal life is in danger. But the man — Aparshakti is wonderfully restrained yet seething in another winner of an act after Jubilee — is determined to get to the truth.
The third act of Berlin, to be honest, is a cop-out. It is too convenient and makes you question your investment in the two hours preceding it. But what still holds you, and the film, together is a remarkable turn from Ishwak. The Paatal Lok and Rocket Boys actor shows once more what he is capable of with the right material. Berlin gives him that. Just about.
