Tanaav’s tactile vigour leaves Fauda behind

Once the knowledge that a series is a remake kicks in, the remake is always looked on with weary suspicion. You can safely leave all misgivings and cynical readings behind for Applause Entertainment’s _Tanaav_ on SonyLIV. Stretching tensely into  twelve episodes, Tanaav explores the culture of terrorism in Kashmir from both sides.

While we see the Task Force, comprising a fairly impressive array of trigger-happy actors  navigated by the incurably gruff Manav Vij’s Kabir, a soldier so consumed by his job of bringing down terrorists that his marriage also seems to be coming down. It is a commonly played trope in cop dramas: the khaki hero who loses his wife’s love and support in the  pursuit of his job. Here there is no khaki  but a lot of red and blue as rage turns into grief for a man who can’t seem to get either his personal or professional rhythm right.

The other roles of the Special  Tactics Group(STG) are largely well-cast: Toshi (Sahiba Bali), Uday (Satyadeep Misra), Danish (Arryaman Seth), Kunal ( Arslan Goni), Muneer (Amit Gaur), and Bilal (Rockey Raina), except for a couple of actors who seem to have strayed onto the  wrong location: google map, anyone?

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Tanaav is a partly-haunting, partly-jolting dream-turned-nightmare drama authentically shot on locations that replicate the original paradise-lost terrain. The action scenes are first-rate focusing on loss of life rather than glamorizing the gore.

The language also slips into colloquialism without warning. But there is never any moment of doubt in the clenched war of nerves.

Some  of  the   more  memorable  interludes  include a  devastating  terror  attack  where a  newly  widowed woman who loses  her bridegroom on her  wedding day plants  a bomb in a  crowded  café as  revenge. The  chaos  of a mind that  no longer knows wrong from  right and  the uncaring world outsides, is  beautifully  balanced .  At times  the balanced narrative, the series’s USP, tilts towards jingoism.

Most of the  time  series creator Sudhir Mishra(for whom exploring  the dark territory is a  familiar playground) and  his  director Sachin Krishn  who  is also the series’ cinematographer  manage  to keep the  drama  from toppling  over.

The  peg for   counter-militancy  is a  terrorist named Umar(played  by  Sumit Kaul) who  strikes at unexpected  places and with a ruthlessness that  makes us wonder how this killer  can be  such a living husband  and a  devoted  won to his ailing mother(Zarina Wahab). Umar  dodges STG  quite  deviously making me wonder if the writing knows its heroes and  villains  as well as these anti-terror sagas are meant to.

Hardly anyone smiles in Tanaav…occupational hazard? The one  charming woman who exudes sunshine in every frame, loses her life early in the war against terrorism. ‘Happy Kashmir’ is as traditionally demystified  as  ‘Happily married’.

_Tanaav_ is the official remake of the Israeli series Fauda. Having seen both, I can confidently conclude that remakes are not always a cut-and-paste job. This one does a creative conversion of militancy in Israel to Kashmir without skipping a heartbeat.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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