Widening the Gothic World in Kohraa (1964)
Gothic literature was an upper level course, so I wasn’t allowed to take it in my first year of university. At that point I only wore black and I’d read Jane Eyre in middle school and Dracula in high school both of my own accord. Naturally I was outraged.
Book lovers and publishers are having their love affair with this style of literature thanks in large part to spaces like BookTube and Booktok. But what frustrates me most about these gothy aesthetic videos panning across editions of Dracula, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre, is that they’re all the same books. Despite so many diverse options, the digital space for gothic literature is overwhelmingly white.
What’s great about cinema though – lest you thought I wasn’t going to mention books versus movies – is that it has helped to diversify this aesthetic of storytelling. So I was especially thrilled when I first came across Biren Nag’s Kohraa, (‘The Fog’) a film from 1964 which is an adaptation of Rebecca the novel by Daphne du Maurier and film by Alfred Hitchcock. To be clear I’m a huge fan of both directors’ work, so this isn’t about picking favorites.
Orphaned Rajeshwari is going to be married off to her ward’s mentally ill son as an apparent means of curing him. She meets Amit, a wealthy businessman when they’re both about to throw themselves from a rocky ledge. Instead they fall in love and get married. Upon returning with Amit to Mayfair Manor, his panopticon-like ancestral home, Rajeshwari stumbles into an isolated fortress haunted by the spirit of Poonam, Amit’s first wife. Literally. Unlike Rebecca where the haunting is psychological. Poonam rattles windows, rocks chairs, lures Rajeshwari onto a rooftop, and generally made me glad I watched Kohraa in the daytime.
Of the little there is written about Kohraa which was actually a box office flop, I was frustrated to see it referred to as a morality tale. It’s reductive to constantly put Indian cinema in the box of punishing female protagonists when they do not live up to Sita’s image. When Rebecca’s true nature is revealed, her cruelty is inexorably linked to her sexual promiscuity. Like Poonam, Rebecca’s fate rests heavily on the notion that she has been punished for her sins. Let’s face it, if there’s one thing global art and media can agree on it’s punishing women.
I would have watched Kohraa solely for Waheeda Rehman, but this movie is also visually stunning. If Rebecca emulates stillness and uses angles and lighting meant to shrink the protagonist so that she is swallowed by the vastness of Manderly, Biren’s cinematography is jarring, claustrophobic, and messy. Canted camera angles and extreme closeups of the Dai Maa, Poonam’s slavishly devoted maid leering over Rajeshwari in bed produce a discomforting viewing experience that nevertheless keeps you weighted to your seat, with no idea how it will end. Well, if you’ve read the book you’ll know, but there’s an extra twist. Must. Resist. Spoiling!!!
While there have been adaptations of Nag’s film since, his is the kind of gem I wish existed more in Bollywood. It completely subverts the viewer’s expectations. It is at once an homage to other great filmmakers and something so deeply Indian. There are songs too and they are haunting and beautiful.
Kohraa is a bit tricky to track down a copy of. There are some staticky versions on YouTube (sadly without), but if you can find a way to get a good copy, watch it in the middle of the day – or at least not next to a rocking chair.