Kavaludaari | Sculpting Time and Space | Video Essay Script

Hi, my name is Kishor and this is MOVING IMAGES. One of the most important aspects of filmmaking is editing. Although often overlooked, it was editing that transformed cinema from a documentary style display of people and activities into a storytelling medium. It wasn’t until the famed French illusionist Georges Méliès experienced a mishap with his camera in which the film jammed unexpectedly giving the subjects the impression of having jumped from one location to another that the true potential of cinema as a viable art form first became clear. Editing cemented cinemas ability to manipulate time and space through the careful presentation of images. So when a film embraces the true potential of editing and uses it as a means of storytelling, it makes for a rewarding watch.

One such film is the 2019 neo-noir Kavaludaari. The film revolves around a traffic cop, who starts investigating three skulls that are found near a construction site. His search leads him to a 40 years old case, and an ex-policeman who used to handle the case. Together, the two try to solve the mystery that determines the fate of the entire state. The film has some classic noir tropes, such as a hardboiled detective, a femme fatale, and playing with light and shadows. But what interests me the most is how the film makes time feel fluid, almost blurring the lines between the past and present. It does so expertly through its writing and more importantly through its editing. Today, let’s see how Kavaludaari sculpts time and space through its editing.

After a prologue, the film cuts to the present day and introduces us to our protagonist, Shyam. Now Shyam’s introduction is done brilliantly through editing, by tripping through time. A plethora of editing techniques are used here. You have J-cuts and L-cuts where the audio precedes or carries over to the next scene. Match cuts where the cut from one shot to another are matched by the action or subject and subject matter. Cutting on action, cutting on dialogue, the list goes on. But what is important here is the film is not being stylish for style sake. The constant jump in time and space has a purpose in the story, it is used here to show how Shyam’s life is kind of a blur. He is bored and unhappy at his job and nothing exciting ever happens. He is neither able to get the job he wants or find a girl. It is a routine life with the same set of events, only for him to sleep and wake up the next day to do it all over again. Time has lost its meaning on him and this is shown through the establishing scene.

This nature also makes Shyam the perfect guy to solve the murder mystery that is 40 years old. While other cops abandon the case since it has been many decades since the muder and no one is interested now, Shyam picks it up. For him it doesn’t matter that the case is older than he is. He treats it as an ongoing investigation. Time is irrelevant, and so is space, seen by how the landscape of the city has changed so much that a lake has changed to a metro rail, or the barren land surrounding a tree has turned into a resort. But Shyam persists. In a brilliant sequence that is inspired from Sherlock, Shyam pours through old unsolved cases from the time of Emergency in India. The filmmakers are able to visually show revelations; where information transforms into cause and effect. As Shyam tries to find the possible victims whose skulls were found, he has to reject other cases that do not match his search. This is shown excellently by melding the past and present together, by putting them inside the same room, until..

Now revelations usually happen when the main character and the audience see the same information from a new perspective. In Kavaludaari, this change in perspective is shown by juxtaposing the old and the new perspective, by having the past and present speak with each other. In this part for example, Shyam reads through the case file and the interviews conducted by the ex policeman and you see the information he is reading through the suspects talking to Shyam. The film feeds us the information we need to find out who the murderer is, even sometimes too blatantly. But when the perspective switches the past and present meet as here with Mutthanna leading to his revelation of who the murderer is. And here the conversation is quite literal with a past shot and a present reverse shot. The murderer in the present is talking to his past self, even coaxing himself to become the man he is now. And with the main characters, we the audience too come to the revelation of how the crime was committed.

Kavaludaari through its great filmmaking and editing embodies the workings of the mind of its characters. The film has very little CGI trickery. What you see are the time-tested methods of editing showing us how time is fluid, and how actions have consequences no matter how many decades go by. Until next time, this is Kishor signing off saying…