BA Pass

Good thing is there’s more to this movie than just its erotic nature. The film starts with young Mukesh (Shadab Kamal) dealing with the death of his parents. He compares the feeling of loss to the feeling of being cheated but not knowing who to blame. There begins his journey. He plays chess in a cemetary; he serves cold drinks at his aunt’s kitty parties and hope’s for a better life for his younger sisters. So when a rather good looking house wife Sarika (Shilpa Shukla) shows illicit interest in him he finds a distraction. Just as he’s bid adieu to virginity, Sarika shows him the financial and emotional benefits of getting paid for sex. So far so good. But like most unwarranted bargains, things spiral out of control pretty soon. And Mukesh finds out that innocence and honesty have no place in a sex-starved soceity.

Right from the first frame, Ajay Bahl makes no pretense of painting a rosy picture. He starts on a grim note and ends with tragedy. Mukesh is a mere narrative tool. A depiction that soceity feasts on the frail. But along the way there are some steamy sex scenes between Shilpa Shukla and Shadab Kamal. They’re not Hollywood-esque but they’re unprecedentedly bold for Hindi films. And that works for BA Pass as it starts to shock you and please you at the same time. When deceit and irony start kicking in you start wondering if the bursts of endorphin were justified. If you should’ve resisted the phermone bursts. But you’ve already sat through the stimulation. And the grim end only makes you feel worse.

But these experiences work on a subliminal level. On the surface, BA Pass is a thriller with a predictable twist and end. Its slice-of-life touches make it better. When Mukesh is pleasing a house wife she starts bad mouthing someone called Dinesh. When Mukesh asks who Dinesh is, she reveals that’s her husband. Bahl extends his thoughtful filmmaking to composing his shots and frames. When Mukesh is dealing with sexual abuse, he’s captured in the red light of Hotel neon signs. It’s a nice artistic touch.

But the strength of this movie is its cast. Dibyendu Bhattacharya as the goodhearted Johnny is a great surprise. Better still is Shilpa Shukla as the seductress. Let’s just say Savita bhabhi (from the adult comic world) comes to life in a live-action movie. She’s a femme fatale but she’s totally irresistable. Shadab has a wide range of emotions in his performance and he shows the perfect amount of promise.

BA Pass reinvents Delhi for cinema. Take those “political city” and “crime capital” tags away. This film shows you the national capital has an underbelly as dark as Mumbai. Full marks for this unique, new offering. Thank god there’s a fresh new wave of filmmakers.