‘Agra’ (2025) Movie Review - Kanu Behl's Torpefying Nightmare

Kanu Behl has started calling multiplexes out for not giving screens to Agra. When someone on Twitter asked him if they could watch the film in a small theater away from the stupidity of mainstream cinema halls, he replied that it's no longer about getting a small space in a corner; indie filmmakers deserve better treatment. He is not content with getting one or two screens in a few theaters; he wants equal opportunity, equal competition with those 1000-crore blockbusters. Behl, like a young Anurag Kashyap, has been constantly spitting fire. He wants to bring revolution to movie theaters. And like Kashyap, Behl has started his career with movies that take us to places reeking of foul smell. But when Kashyap, in Paanch, Black Friday, Ugly, and Gulaal took us within rotting spaces, he made sure we could feel the rot in our very gut. When Behl plunges us into the psychosexual toxicity of his characters' mindsets, we come out all numb and perplexed. Behl's provocations aren't conventional. He neither celebrates the toxic behavior nor feels repulsed by its presence. This is where Behl's filmmaking becomes curious: he erects a wall between us and his characters with a lot of numbness, only to suddenly hit us with a "libidinal excitement" through sex.
 

Sex in a Kanu Behl film is animalistic, erotic, and feverish. It emanates with a primal urgency that makes his characters look like cavemen. In the opening scene of Agra, Behl even turns sex cartoonish. The movie is about a 24-year-old boy whose face screams "sexual frustration." He is Guru, played by Mohit Agarwal, whose dissatisfied countenance infuses Agra with a bleak expressionism. It's a very common, very ordinary face, yet it stands out on the bus, in the crowd, at a café, because, like a black hole, it seems to be draining all the color, all the vibrancy from everywhere. The frames in Agra are dead, and in this decaying environment, Guru sees lubricious nightmares. When he tries to run, he comes across a man masturbating in the toilet. There is a lot of masturbation here. Guru pleasures himself through vulgar sex chats. Given the accuracy with which he types under, um, "hormonal pressure," one can safely conclude that he will use the keyboard correctly even during an earthquake. Guru's sexual hunger not only reeks of desperation, but it also introduces subtle comic shades. His "jerking off" face is pathetic and laughable — it's the face of almost every Indian man. Guru is so horny, so dumb, so naive that when he talks about his marriage, a voice emerges from the screen and from our head that says, "First, do something about your miserable condition. Don't talk like a kid; improve yourself!" One can even hear his Daddy Ji (Rahul Roy), Mummy Ji (Vibha Chhibber), and his Aunty Ji (Sonal Jha) mocking him inside their own heads. 

When Guru brings Mala (Ruhani Sharma) to his home and announces his marital intentions, we get to see how psychologically disturbed this boy actually is, how his "pyaar ka bukhaar" is a severe mental sickness. Daddy Ji, in disbelief, comments, "Yeh phir se shuru ho gaya?" Well, what has he started again? (Spoilers ahead) Mala, you see, exists in Guru's imagination. If Daddy Ji's words mean anything, it's that Mala is probably not the first girl Guru has "brought" home to talk about marriage. That opening scene, then, becomes clearer. When Mala teases Guru by saying, "Kuch nahi hona hai," she tells him that, forget in real life, he won't be able to get his hands on her even in his imagination. The scene becomes perverse when an animal enters the picture, but Guru, alas, is a pervert. He begins to force himself on Chhavi (Aanchal Goswami), his sister, when she consoles him after an incident. Why is Guru like this? I am not sure I can pinpoint a single reason for his behavior. There is no warmth between him and his mother (she, however, tells him to hang his underwear, which she will clean later). His father has two wives and is planning a third marriage. Guru doesn't seem to have any friends to discuss his urges. He spends his time on an adult chat app, where he furiously texts and masturbates. He works at a call center, where he makes eye contact with a colleague and dreams of having sex on the staircase. Guru's whole existence, in other words, is unhealthy, cold, and unpleasant. The only relationship he is capable of forming is the one driven by coitus. When he notices Priti (Priyanka Bose) and her limp, he doesn't sympathize with her. He only thinks of sex. 

What's more, Guru doesn't make love; he penetrates. He thrusts with such intense force that it feels as if he's venting out all his dirty, misogynistic thoughts and frustrations through orgasms. An orgasm for him is a "release" in many ways. Guru is an unusually sordid creation. Most characters, whether good or bad, generate some curiosity among the audience. Guru, though, doesn't invite much curiosity; he desensitizes you and collapses your range of emotions. You feel nothing for him. He deadens your senses. The biggest joke in Agra is that the characters try to cure Guru with medicine. If Guru is ill, what about the father who has two wives? What about a builder who tries to cheat Guru, who is corrupt, who definitely doesn't have good intentions? The scene where Chhavi calls out this builder for taking advantage of her brother is reminiscent of that scene from Despatch where a woman argues with a broker. In both cases, the women confidently assert themselves, while the men come across as weak, blind, and ignorant. 

Happy endings are not for Behl. He either leaves you hanging or kills someone at the end. In Agra, like in Titli, we get an ending that only looks happy on the surface. The more you think about it, the more you realize that everything's just the same. Guru might have got his room, the house might have been erected, but the characters, on the inside, don't change. The "progress" merely happens on the outside. The house might be new, but the people living in it are the same. But even here, Behl plays with you, inserting another scene with multiple interpretations. When Mala tells Guru to forget, to dismiss everything as a dream, is she talking about her "relationship" with him, or is she indicating that the five-storey building was built in his head? I don't think the answer matters because, as mentioned earlier, the real change — the change that's actually crucial — doesn't happen. Behl doesn't supply easy, digestible, conventional explanations. He operates within a dream logic that unfolds like a torpefying nightmare. His rhythms are off — the scenes linger way past their deadlines. "Discomfort" is built into Behl's aesthetic; his filmmaking, too, is like a revolution. It's a revolution against commercial blockbusters that infantilize the audience. 

Final Score- [8.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times