10 August,2024 07:09 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from the series
If someone who's never visited India, let alone small-town India, got gifted an exhaustive playlist of shows and movies set in our locations - they should be permitted to believe this is a seriously cold country.
Literally, all series, movies, particularly to do with Tier II towns, are set in the winters. To the extent that film industry folks must've noticed, it's hard to find cast, crew in Bombay, October onwards.
They're all in jackets, boots, hoodies and cravats, shooting in the North, the likes of Dehradun, Mussoorie. As with the first season of Gyaarah Gyaarah.
On which the wintry set-up appears all the more apt, since this police procedural is set in the âcold cases' department of the local cop force.
Meaning, those entrusted to crack unsolved mysteries, decades hence. That's a supreme luxury on tax payers' money, you'd think. But it's borne out of pressure from public, press.
More so, and this is how the series opens - first, the court orders a 15-year statute of limitations for criminal cases. As in: It sets 15 years for the length of time a criminal case can be brought for trial; otherwise, consider it done/finished, you can't revisit them.
This is how a thriller-like clock starts ticking over the mystery of a murdered li'l girl, that remains unresolved in 2016, ever since 2001. The time that the cops have left to solve this case is, hence, in hours, minutes, seconds.
Which makes me wonder if they did find the murderer, only a few minutes later than the statute of limitation (not telling you, if they did) - would the courts miss the larger picture entirely, and be so stuck up, over a minor technicality? Like wrestler Vinesh Phogat being 100 gm overweight? Well, ârules are rules', I guess.
All said, that's a great start for the show. It's produced by Karan Johar and Oscar winner, Guneet Monga Kapoor - follow-up to Kill (2024), their last actioner together. Monga used to be producer for Anurag Kashyap Films before.
Kashyap's last release was Do Baaraa (2:12), official remake of the Spanish film, Mirage. Which sounds a lot like Gyaarah Gyaarah (11:11), credited adaptation of the Korean series, Signal.
And that's not the only aspect common between both. They equally deal with someone in the past, talking to somebody in the present, through distortions in an electronic device.
In this case, a walkie-talkie, through which two cops are in touch, over multiple timelines. One (Raghav Juyal) is in the present.
By which, they mean 2016, which is also eight years from when we are viewing this show. That the events of 2016 were almost a decade ago, from 2024, somehow, freaks me out to know - in case you're reading this in the future!
The past cop (Dhairya Karwa) momentarily picks up his walkie-talkie, in 1990, 1998, and 2001. Yet, Gyaarah Gyaarah is more a crime procedural than sci-fi or supernatural thriller.
Consider how easily two supposedly rational gentlemen take to talking to each other, through time. As if nothing unnatural is going on.
They never tell anyone about it. They are totally immersed in investigating the criminal cases before them, instead. That seems more important.
As is Dehradun, the town, traversing between various timelines, crimes. The director, Umesh Bist (Pagglait, 2021), brings a sort of an immersive feel to the Uttarakhand capital. I did google, if there is Sonali Talkies in D'dun (playing Dil, in 1990)?
Nope, there isn't. Also, I know it's expensive - but picking up popular music from each of the years captured, for a soundtrack, could totally enliven the scenes here. As it is, popular nostalgia resides in the '90s.
But this is really about the murders. Three separate cases - instead of following one, over eight, long episodes. Which is a fine formula the Koreans (writer Kim Eun-hee) have cracked for what's both a mini-series, and an episodic show, primarily inspired by American sci-fi thriller, Frequency (2000).
Signal (2016) is currently on Netflix. I'm not surprised the algorithm never guided me to it. Can't recall the last K-drama I watched since Squid Game (2021), if that even counts.
Would I have been better off, watching the original, instead of its Hindi adaptation - perhaps even switching to a Hindi-dub, if subtitles not my thing?
Well, would've lost out on some terrific performances, starting with Juyal (from Kill) for a junior; more so, Kritika Kamra as the mid-level cop; or the rabidly profane, Harsh Chhaya, as the police chief type.
And the gentleman, who's Chhaya's immediate subordinate in the IPS, whose name I can't seem to find on the Internet. You, sir - and I will find you - you were good!
Signal's got 16 episodes. Gyaarah Gyaarah has eight. That means we are only half way through. Would I be interested in clicking on the original to see what happens next?
Will just wait it out for the Hindi sequel. And hope the subsequent cases are more interesting, without the easy over-explanations - wherein we don't even know how they arrived at the backstories!
Besides the aforementioned case of the murdered kid, the other two crime files relate to a serial killer, and a crack in the mafia. By the time you get to the end, it seems the show's lost all the stamina/steam. That said, 2/3 for Gyaarah Gyaarah is not bad at all.
