The day after Diwali celebrations, the air is heavy with the smell of burnt firecrackers. The toxic smog envelops the surroundings with severe air quality index because of firecracker emissions. Every year, it is the same story. The lack of awareness, even after repeated warnings and ban on firecrackers, responds to a larger ignorance of the populace about the deteriorating condition of the climate. It is frightening.
In Rahul Jain’s Invisible Demons, the 70-minute documentary that is streaming on MUBI, a sequence is entirely devoted to the bursting of firecrackers during the festivities, and the amount of smoke that accumulates in the air as a result.
Although Invisible Demons plays out in the capital, the situation escalates in every corner of the country. Setting the film in Delhi gives it a specificity to the existent concerns, as the film-maker turns the camera towards the city he grew up in. Jain knows the people and the places, the sights that have become darker and darker as the years have passed. Invisible Demons plays out like a horror film where the frightening reality of climate change is a lived experience. The ever-increasing heatwave, the daunting image of a river whose water has become filthy black due to the direct outlet of the nearby factory, or the massive heap of plastic waste in the dumping yard — these are the visible components that Jain captures as the reality seeps in.
Grotesque and frightening, Invisible Demons feels scarier than a horror film because it is real.
One of the main aspects of the documentary that works in its favour is how it does not follow any trajectory of action. This is no character study — the city itself is the subject that is observed through a distance. Delhi acts as a living, breathing space, accommodating life and suffocating in the process. There are no clear-cut solutions either — just facets of the intersectionality of such a menace we have brought on ourselves.
Jain follows a news reporter as she interviews families living in the streets, and how they are being affected by the pollution. They complain of red eyes and suffocation. Later a car mechanic reveals how his son is always falling ill ever since they shifted to Delhi. There is a fundamental sense of unfairness in these revelations, like the reporter notes how climate change affects the lower middle-class the most.
The camera pans out to capture the particles that are built in air due to the enormous amount of toxic gases released during the festivals. It is a nighmarish revelation described as “poisonous darts piercing our lungs.” Jain combines video footage and brief testimonies to expose how the climate crisis is a situation that has no one solution.
There are so many avenues of waste accumulation, and how it has permanently changed the climate and the ecology. Earlier monsoons were seen as an occasion for “celebration”, but now, as almost half of the capital remains flooded during heavy downpours, the situation calls for a pertinent cry for help.
Invisible Demons returns to the river where the water has been covered with chunks of white foam as a result of the toxic waste outlet. At the end of durga puja, idols are immersed in the same water and the women stand knee-deep, offering prayers. Jain rests on that image that stands out like a cutout from a sci-fi horror film. The truth hits home. Will our prayers be answered? Will the gods listen?
Invisible Demons is an urgent cry for action, one that confidently throws light on the destruction of our nature we have brought on ourselves as a nation. It quietly questions... when are we going to take a step to fight climate change? How long will it take us to open our eyes to the grotesque truth? There are no easy answers. It is beyond the Gods to help at this point. We are our own demons.
