One of my favourite scenes from Sriram Raghavan's brilliant Andhadhun is one in which a character, who has, unexpectedly, seen too much, visits the police station to report what he should not have seen. It is a particularly telling moment, as is a scene some minutes later when an elderly lady, who happened to have seen too much as well, nudges an indifferent policeman to ask a few more questions, as she puts it, casually. When we have seen, or rather think that we have seen, more than what we imagine, we become more than just amateur detectives. We are also keen to point fingers, to accuse and we won't sit still until we are satisfied with any stray piece of evidence, even if it does not lead us to the truth.
When reviewing that magnificent film, perhaps one of the finest thrillers from Hindi cinema for a long, long time, I referenced Sir Carol Reed's The Third Man, a superlative whodunnit in its own right, and even in that indelible film, the very idea of 'seeing is believing' is turned recklessly, anarchically on its head as the truth turns out to be something darker, nastier altogether. A tightly wound and flawlessly scripted conspiracy thriller with a very believably dystopian milieu, Reed's film ranks as one of the most exhilarating and eye-opening potboilers of the silver screen. Yet, I am here not to talk about that much lauded, much quoted masterpiece. Instead, I am here to gush with love about an earlier, relatively lesser-known gem from the same geniuses who produced that marvel.
Based on Graham Greene's disquietingly dire short story The Basement Room, The Fallen Idol, the first of the three crackerjack collaborations between the legendary writer of suspense and drama and director Reed, is a scarily superb thriller and, unexpectedly, a terrifying moral drama with a very real sense of dread, guilt and catharsis. Helmed with Reed's trademark brisk yet beautifully nuanced vigour and with a concise, script by Greene with devilishly brilliant tweaks in his own original tale, this is a more internalised yet equally intelligent and incisive film and one that too is all about the fallacy of seeing more than what you ought to see. No wonder then that it also popped up in Raghavan's personal list of thrillers that we all ought to watch.
In a large magisterial house on Grosvenor Square in busy and bustling London, Phillippe, a 7-year old boy, is blissfully alone for the weekend. His parents will be returning on Monday; he is left alone with his boyhood hero and idol Baines, the dainty and charismatic butler of the house but he also has to avert the stern and domineering gaze of Mrs. Baines, who strides down the staircases and floors of the temporarily empty house with a suspicious and malevolent eye. And so, one fine afternoon, already disillusioned with her overbearing discipline, Philipe sprints out into the sunlight and streets and sees something that he should not have seen.
What follows is a sinful pleasure that is best read and experienced on your own, a tersely absurd, wickedly cynical yarn that hovers delicately on a tripwire of lies, lies tossed recklessly and carelessly to protect a clandestine truth. This is also a film about secrets, confidences that adults share too easily or unwittingly with children and also about how these very confidences demand more lies at which nobody is good at.
I would urge you all to read the short story first and then discover the film with both its unprecedented narrative direction and ardent faith to the source. The story, with Greene's customary skill at portraying the many shades of moral greyness, is a darker, meaner tale; the film, on the other hand, is enlivened with Reed's lighter, more upbeat tenor and little touches of quirk and humour. London at night is a darker, more foreboding and alienating city in the story while it becomes more vivid and picturesque in the film, from the sweeping balcony views of the Square in the morning to the sun-kissed frolic of a holiday at the Zoo.
But what is most intriguing to discover, when discovering both the story and the film simultaneously, is the brilliant twist in the crucial incident that propels the rest of the plot, devised by the irascibly brilliant Greene himself in the adapted screenplay. In the story, what happens is unmistakable in its concise, cathartic, crystal-like clarity; in the film, meanwhile, what a character sees and imagines is completely opposite of what is the truth and you will be wracked by the director's gradually escalating sense of dread, as you wish for the truth hidden so salaciously to come tumbling out for some relief.
What further makes the film hum and throb like immaculate clockwork is the excellently chosen cast. The legendary thespian Sir Ralph Richardson is compellingly poignant as the broken yet big-hearted Baines, an eternal sufferer like Greene's many unforgettable anti-heroes, even given to pompous, heroic exploits like the ludicrously charming Major Jones in The Comedians, yet endowed, as with that ill-fated scrounger, with a heart of profound pathos. Sonia Dresdel's Mrs. Baines is as tough-willed and adroit as her devilish yet all too believable counterpart in the story; she is as full of 'cruelty and misery' as she has to be. And thank heavens that Reed and Greene give her even more meaty malice on the screen, too, including that startling scene with a hair-pin that is kept intact.
What works best in The Fallen Idol, as in The Basement Room, is the crucially slippery and easily mollycoddled character of Phillippe. The film casts him, in a subversive stroke, as French, which also heightens his childlike inability to understand the moral duplicity at the crux of the film that feels distinctly English; it also lends him with a grudgingly hidden secret that he stashes away from Mrs. Baines' all-knowing eyes. But as in the story, Phillippe's naive willingness to be a part of the grown-up world around him is what drives him to the moment of shocking revelation. Played with confidence and disarming ease by Bobby Henrey, as an evidence of Reed's uncanny flair at handling knee-high performers, Phillippe is the tormented soul of the film and the story, the boy who saw too much for his and others' good.
I have watched this film twice and read the story more than twice. And I cannot help but rediscover them again, just to make sure that what I read or what I saw was exactly what had happened. That is what I would advise to you as well. Keep your eyes wide open and don't forget to read between the lines.
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