AGRA STATE OF MIND

Kanu Behl’s second feature, Agra, which will debut at Cannes, explores the themes of insanity and male sexual desire

- Suhani Singh

By director Kanu Behl’s own admission, the protagonist in his second feature, Agra, is up to no good. Guru (newcomer Mohit Agarwal), a sexually repressed twentysomething man, does “dastardly things” and has a “difficult gaze”, but Behl and his co-writer Atika Chohan hope to garner some empathy for him amidst the drama. The ‘Agra’ of the title isn’t just a reference to the backdrop but also to Guru’s state of mind, which others equate to the residents of the city’s infamous mental asylum. “Guru has his own bizarre method of saying what is wrong in the house,” Behl says. That’s not to absolve other occupants as saints. Adds Behl, “It is like being inside a madhouse with six crazy people…they are as mad, if not more, as him. They refuse to acknowledge their secret lives.”

Like Behl’s debut film Titli (2014),