Exclusive! Dil Bekaraar director Habib Faisal: Hopefully the show helps audience reflect on the present times

Dil Bekaraar had its release on Disney+ Hotstar last week to exceptionally favourable reviews. The show, which brings to life Anuja Chauhan’s novel Those Pricey Thakur Girls, follows the lives of five sisters who live in a bungalow on Delhi’s Hailey Road with their parents. The ten-episode series is written by Suhani Kanwar and Ruchika Roy, and directed by Habib Faisal. 

Prior to the show's release, the filmmaker spoke to OTTPlay about his excitement to share his work, and how Dil Bekaraar stands out among an influx of content that focuses on violence and espionage.

Excerpts from the conversation:

How pumped are you for Dil Bekaraar?

Pumped I am in the swimming pool and the gym. One is nervous, and when you bring it [the show] to the audience, there are butterflies. Not just me, all of us are. Hopefully, what we enjoyed making and found very exciting by way of its process, the audience will also find it equally exciting.

The show is going to be released on an OTT platform and not TV, what’s it like for you to know it will be available to a broad audience?

When it comes to numbers, TV still has bigger numbers than OTT platforms. Those numbers are to do with rural/urban [demographics]. I’m anyway not an expert on this. The show has been made for the web, and not for TV. So from the very beginning, we knew it was for an OTT platform. If you’re saying that more people are watching that’s a function of the demographics because even in urban spaces, even the older gang has moved to OTT platforms. It’s amazing how a whole lot of people who have never ever seen Malayalam films are just watching Fahadh Faasil films left, right and centre. They exhausted the Hindi stuff on platforms, so they moved on to watching [content in] other languages. I think this is a function of the demographics more than platform versus conventional medium.

When we do tell a story, then the excitement and the challenges are of telling the story. Whether it’s a short film or a feature format or a long format web show, the differences that come in are on the scale of the spectacle. Also primarily, the difference that comes in is that in a feature film, you need to encapsulate a character’s journey in two hours or in an hour and a half. In a web show, you get to explore layers and layers and layers. So then you need to choose your story intelligently rather than pick up a story that has a precise storyline. It’s like the difference between writing a novel and a short story. That is as far as the creative side is concerned. As far as the numbers and business, that is what you are always nervous about, and that is a function of whether people like what you’ve created or not.

It’s often said “the book is better than the movie”, so are you nervous that the readers and the fan base will not like Dil Bekaraar?

Irrespective of whether it was original work or based on a book; whether you make a painting or a sandwich and you serve it to your boyfriend or vice versa, you are always going to be nervous. You’re always nervous about what the response is going to be. Will the sandwich be liked or not liked? When you create something new, whether people will like it or not: it’s an exciting nervousness. The whole journey of making it — the ups and downs, COVID, and lockdown — all of that is over. Now the product is going to be out there, and you just hope that all the effort put in will be enjoyed by people.

Did you feel like you had to be true to the source material or did you take any creative liberties?

Of course [we had to stick to the source material], otherwise Anuja would hang all of us. She’s obviously put in a lot of work into writing this book of which people have liked so much. I wouldn’t say [we have taken creative liberties], it has just got to do with the fact they are different media. A book is written with words, and in that, the author tells you what’s happening. When you’re making a visual story, then you need to show. A novel is all about telling. A visual story, a web show or a feature film are about showing. So wherever a novelist may take 8 pages to describe something, which we can show in 10 seconds. Then there are times when a novelist will compress a whole decade in four lines and for us, we may need to take five minutes to show that decade. The spirit and the essence of the story are very much the same.

What do you want the audience to take away from the show after they watch it? What do you want them to feel?

They can primarily have fun, be entertained. When they are watching it and looking back in time then they can look at the themes being played out. Hopefully, it will help them reflect on the present. That was our intention while making the show, which is why it makes any sense to make a show about the 1980s in the 2020s if for you to look back in history and reflect on the present.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Just one thing that kept us going in spite of all the logistical complications was the fact that we were doing a show which was not driven by violence, espionage, spies or drugs. It is a story of every man and every woman. It is in a different era and it’s got humour.

Dil Bekaraar is now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar. Watch the trailer here: