Mumbai at night. Warm ambers and reds. Street lights, Victoria carriages, tinted taxi windows. Singer Suman Sridhar’s sultry voice croons “Muskanein Jhoothi Hai” while the city blurs and falls back into focus. The signs telling us we’re looking at Mumbai come almost three minutes into Talaash (2012), but long before that, you know this is India’s city of dreams, the place where mistakes turn into miracles. This is where director Reema Kagti set her noir mystery, starring Aamir Khan as Suri, a policeman who is haunted by the death of his young son and finds solace in the company of a beguiling sex worker, Rosie, played by Kareena Kapoor Khan. Although Talaash hints at a supernatural presence from the very beginning, the reveal that — spoiler alert — Rosie has been dead long before she met Suri could have felt unconvincing had it not been for the way cinematographer K.U. Mohanan’s shot the city. Mohanan, whose other films include Andhadhun (2018) and Aaja Nachle (2007), picturised Mumbai as a dreamy no man’s land, replete with hints of unusual beauty that feel magical, mischievous and also melancholic. Talaash’s Mumbai is both tantalising and steeped in sadness – flippant about its unsavoury nightly activities but also grieving the horrific secrets it must hold within itself.
The fact that much of Talaash unfolds in Mumbai streets at night excited Mohanan. “I like Mumbai’s streets at night and I wanted to capture that spirit of Mumbai – the sodium vapour light and the [mystery] about dark lanes,” he said. Today, many of the city’s streets are lit by pale white-ish LED lights but in 2012, yellow lamps drenching the nights in warm tones was a common sight. “In most of the films earlier, they try to kill that character and add extra blue to it and make it something else,” said Mohanan. “Nights in Indian cities are never blue,” he added. For Mohanan the warmth of this light was central to cityscape against which Talaash unfolded.
A crucial accident occurs in the dead of the night – a car speeding on Marine Drive’s deserted road swivels and dives into the sea’s dark depths. The scene was shot on Puducherry’s Promenade beach, owing to the fact that blocking a kilometre-long stretch for days on end was next to impossible in Mumbai. The Promenade’s similarity to Marine Drive made it an ideal location, but the lighting posed a problem. “That street was all mercury vapour lights. Mercury light is bluish white. So I changed everything,” said Mohanan gleefully. “I changed the entire street, I removed the light which was there and added this [sodium vapour] light.” The effect is astounding: “Nobody can make out that it is Puducherry. It looks like Mumbai,” he said, remembering with gratitude the production team that assisted him on this arduous task.
The city in Talaash is, in Mohanan’s words, “my interpretation of Mumbai”, born out of Kagti’s script. “My style comes from the script. When I read Talaash’s script, this is what came to my mind,” he said. “I think I'm quite proud because it was unique for that time, the way Talaash was visualized. Nobody tried to make this city look like that,” said the cinematographer. It’s interesting to see the contrast and parallels between the way he shot the city in Talaash and the equally striking but different portrait of Mumbai in Cannes-nominated Miss Lovely (2012), directed by Ashim Ahluwalia who was the showrunner for the first season of Class on Netflix. Miss Lovely offers a grim look at the business of sex and horror films in Mumbai and visually, Mohanan opted for a balance between muted, cold colours and warm tones.
What’s most surprising perhaps is how neatly Mohanan’s yellow and red hues fall in line with his depiction of Mumbai’s red-light area. Before director Sanjay Leela Bhansali waved his wand over Kamathipura in Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), red-light areas were usually shot in lurid colours: Yellows, pinks and greens clashing against bling and flashy make-up; the tackiness perhaps an extension of either the realism or the titillating distaste the films wish to evoke in their audiences. Talaash, while sticking to the reality of its location (especially in awareness of its stance as a socially relevant film), also adds a sheen of coy dreaminess to its visuals. “That reality (sex work) is there in the background. It's hidden there all throughout the film and it's covered with another layer which makes it look more pleasing to you,” said Mohanan. The reason for this creative call? “[Suri’s] relationship with Rosie – it's a love story. There is romance happening in that background. Romance should have a kind of dreamy kind of feel to it,” said Mohanan.
This cloaking of sex work in both glamour and grief is best embodied by Rosie’s character. Sensual and alluring but always hinting at a deep loss, Rosie flippantly flirts with and genuinely comforts Suri. In a stunning sequence, she leads him down the scarlet hallway of ‘Hotel Lido’ as yellow lamps dot the walls, calling back to Wong Kar Wai’s chastely erotic In the Mood for Love (2000). But all her sensuality and hip-swaying culminates into nothing but gentle caresses over Suri’s head as he falls asleep. “Most of the time there is love happening and in certain areas, there is a love breaking but even in the breaking, that love is there. I was trying to create that kind of atmosphere with a softer and warmer light,” said the cinematographer.
While admitting that this was his own interpretation of the relationship, Mohanan stressed upon the importance of a cinematographer knowing the script and story intimately. “There is a kind of parallel narrative from the cinematographer – the way you're visually narrating – which goes very well with the director's narrative. That is when the film becomes a complete experience,” he said.
Looking back at Talaash, Mohanan was proud of how the film captured not only Mumbai, but also the time in which it came out. “[Mumbai] doesn't look like that anymore. Knowingly or unknowingly, a film is documenting history,” he said. “When you look at a film from the Sixties, you see so many things in the film. You see some of the scenes in which they shot some place [and] that place is not like that anymore.” Although Mumbai has a timelessness about itself, the city is transforming and with it, its visual language. “When I shot Talaash, I shot it on celluloid. That was the last film I shot on celluloid. Then, digital came and I never did anything on film.” What if he shot Talaash today? “It will look absolutely different with the new technology and with the new me,” said Mohanan. I've moved on and the technology moved on. [So,] it's a part of history, actually. … I was documenting Mumbai.”