Technically, Vasan Bala’s Monica, O My Darling, which is streaming on Netflix, is an adaptation of a novel by bestselling Japanese novelist Keigo Higashino. Yet its treatment is so distinctive, you can’t imagine it anywhere but in the director’s cinematic universe. The Huma Qureshi – Rajkummar Rao starrer has Bala’s trademark style, which we first saw in Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota (2018). Full of quirk and hat-tips to Indian cinema and Hollywood, Monica, O My Darling is a treat for cinephiles — and somewhere in the middle of all the easter eggs is a murder mystery.
You must have had a vision for Monica, O My Darling. Did the film meet your expectations?
Yes, and everyone let me also, which is a privilege. I have no regrets but if you ask me to make it again, I’ll make a hundred different choices. But this is a film that is completely me and, in that sense, has been untampered.
Were there elements you wanted in the movie that were non-negotiable?
No, there’s nothing like those. It’s the overall vision, it’s not ki mujhe yeh location chahiye, mujhe yeh dress chahiye (I can’t do without this location, I require this costume). It’s never about the specifics, it’s the overall vision of what you’re trying to achieve. I think you have to be very stubborn about it. Other than that, filmmaking is hardcore logistics. A lot of things will be in your favour and many things won’t. You’ll have to keep manoeuvring around what is available and what is not. But overall, the tone, character arcs, the stereotypes you’re trying to break, the genre tropes you want to subvert — those constituted my vision.
What were the stereotypes that you were intending to break?
It’s not so pointed. It’s more in the philosophical realm rather than a bullet point/PowerPoint thing. It is not that engineered, it is more of ‘feel’, and vision is also a feel, which is beyond a to-do list.
Is there a particular reason why the movie is set in Pune?
Because it is Sriram Raghavan’s birthplace, and because he also sets all his films in Pune…Pune noir. It was a tribute to him, in reverence to him, that we wanted it in no other place but Pune.
In the movie, it almost seems like the murderer wants recognition but is not receiving it.
In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a murderer who is a ninja, who feels he’s God because he’s invisible. He’s like…I’m so down the food chain that you never look at me and now I can become God by killing anyone. So it’s ulta (the opposite) actually. He wanted to be seen, but no one saw him and still, nobody sees him. So he thinks he is God… and the fact that he can get away with anything.