Anurag Kashyap on Monkey in a Cage: ‘Want the audience to be uncomfortable’

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 This film, which comes across as provocative and its theme polarising, revolves around Samar (Deol), an ageing, has-been television star, who meets a younger woman on a dating app. Just as he’s settling into a relationship with the younger Khushi (Saba Azad), Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), who he once dated, wants to be back in his life. After Samar ghosts and blocks Gayatri, she accuses Samar of sexual assault. He lands in prison and is faced with a judicial system steeped in corruption.  

Monkey in a Cage talks about the cases where laws against sexual assault are misused. “I wanted the film to highlight how broken our system is. Only 27 per cent of rape cases are reported. In small towns and villages, such cases often go unreported. In my view, the present law was a knee-jerk reaction to the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case. Instead of strengthening police investigations, loopholes are being exploited by policemen and lawyers to target moneyed people,”says the director of Dev.D and Gulaal.

A still from Monkey in a Cage.

Kashyap calls the film “a coming-of-age story of a man-child”, who does not realise his mistake till almost the end. The choice of Deol as the protagonist is deliberate. “Bobby understands what it is to be a loser. He once told me that at the age of five he knew he would be a star and he became one. One day, his stardom faded away. When he was 40, someone suggested that he needed to learn acting. Though he is a sensitive human being, the characters he plays in the web series Ashram and the 2023 film, Animal, are very different,” Kashyap says.

While he “attempts to go back” to his cinematic roots with Nishaanchi, Monkey in a Cage may be more personal. “I have gone through judgement myself. No one asked me: ‘Are you unwell?’ Or, ‘Are you going through depression?’ Instead, I faced criticism that as a filmmaker I’ve lost my mojo,” he says and adds that he has been judged for posting in favour of Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s last movie Animal. Recently, he called out Vijay Subramaniam for his AI-generated movie Chiranjeevi Hanuman: The Eternal. “I react because the industry does not come together. Subramaniam represents artistes, musicians and actors. When that person does an AI film, he should first quit his job.”

While the second part of Nishaanchi is “shot and locked”, Monkey in a Cage will take a while to be released. Does Kashyap anticipate censor trouble since the film has some disturbing scenes and language? “I want the audience to be uncomfortable. I will fight if there are any censorship issues but I won’t be able to sanitise the film.”