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Kanu Behl

- Kanika Sharma

Behl's film, Agra, is finally in theatres. It's been making news for how few screens it has been given (a number that has slowly climbed, with growing interest in the movie).

It made news for premiering at Cannes, as Behl's first film Titli did in 2014. What it should be making news for is how it strips all pretence away and stares directly at the rage and violence tied to sex, in the minds of repressed young Indian men

here is often a tenderness to slice-of-life stories set in non-metropolitan India. People lean on each other; the light is tinged with gold. Expect none of that in Agra.

This a world that is breathless, brutal and relentless.

The second film by Kanu Behl, 45, has made news for how few screens it has been given (a number that has slowly risen, with growing interest in the movie). It has made news for premiering at Cannes, as Behl's first film Titli did, in 2014.

What it should be making news for is how it strips all pretence away and stares directly at the repression, rage and violence tied to sex, in the minds of sex-starved and space-starved Indian men.

Behl has felt a little bit of this himself, as a teenager.

"I felt crippled by my inability to express myself to the opposite sex," he says. "Still, I know that what I felt was probably only 10% of what someone in Guru's circumstances would feel."

Behl had the rare privilege of his own room, he points out. Like so many others, Guru, the protagonist of Agra, shares his living space with parents and assorted relatives who have the effect of keeping him infantilised and stifled.