In ‘Agra’, a grim portrait of the repressed Indian man

The city of Agra is known to the world for the Taj Mahal, the 17th-century Mughal monument to eternal love. The romance of the Taj, however, is far removed from the life of Guru, the protagonist of the Indian writer-director Kanu Behl's Hindi feature film Agra, which premiered last week at the Directors' Fortnight run parallel to the Cannes Film Festival in France. More relevant to the story than the Taj Mahal is Agra's association in the north Indian public mind with the Institute of Mental Health and Hospital, once known by the damaging moniker Agra Lunatic Asylum.

Neither the monument nor the institute are seen on screen here. Instead, centrality goes to Guru's dingy house, which lies at the heart of the conflict in his family. The troubled 24-year-old and his mother occupy the ground floor, while his father occupies the upper storey with a live-in partner. Guru is dissatisfied with this arrangement and demands a room on the terrace for himself and his girlfriend. His mother, bitter about being abandoned by her husband, wants a section of the building apportioned to her and her niece. The atmosphere is thick with an acrid rage as members of the household constantly clash.