After a recent preview screening of Rahul Dholakia’s Agni, a viewer informed the director that he was going to call 101, the emergency number for the Mumbai Fire Brigade, and thank whoever was on the line. That is the primary reason Dholakia made Agni.
“When I started off, I didn’t entirely realise the importance of making this film,” Dholakia told Scroll. “But when we screened it for firefighters, we realised that the film needed to be made.”
Agni explores the undervalued heroism of the personnel of the Mumbai Fire Brigade. The plot follows a unit led by Pratik Gandhi’s station chief as it douses blazes across Mumbai. In addition to rescuing people while risking injury or death, the firefighters grapple with the possibility that an arsonist is on the loose.
Agni will be premiered on December 6 on Prime Video. Apart from Pratik Gandhi, the movie stars Saiyami Kher, Jitendra Joshi and Udit Arora as firefighters. Sai Tamhankar plays the wife of Vitthal, Gandhi’s character, while Divyyendu is Samit, a police officer and Vitthal’s brother-in-law.
Dholakia was inspired to make Agni after directing a documentary in the United States, where he lives when he is not in Mumbai. In 2021, Dholakia documented an event in New Jersey called the Police Unity Tour, which commemorates officers and firefighters who have died in the line of duty. Dholakia also read about how a terminally ill boy’s wish to be a firefighter was honoured by being made a fire marshal for a day.
Moved by the respect accorded to firefighters in these incidents, Dholakia went about investigating the situation in Mumbai. His conversations with firefighters revealed their anguish over how their contributions to public safety were being ignored. Among the complaints Dholakia heard was that while movie stars make it a point to attend events organised by the Mumbai police, nobody of repute bothers about firefighters.
“These guys are marginalised in our society in every way,” Dholakia observed. “One firefighter in Delhi told me that firefighters worked very hard for low pay, and that I should now make a series on the subject. Another firefighter in Mumbai told the actor who plays the arsonist, you are my hero and your cause touched my heart, even though that isn’t the message of the film.”
Research went into ensuring accuracy, from how firefighters respond to an emergency to their living conditions. The movie takes place entirely on realistic-looking sets, created by a team led by art director Rachna Mandal.
“The fire station chief’s house shown in the film is a replica of the actual house of the fire station chief at Indira Docks in Bombay,” Dholakia said. “We replicated other things we saw, like gumboots with plants in them. While the fire chief has a decent house that’s like a railway compartment, the other guys live in small rooms with a kitchen and a bathroom. Every room has flashing signs so that wherever they are, they know which call to attend.”
One of the first things thrown up by the research was that firefighters don’t shimmy down poles, as is often seen in films or shows. “The poles had been discontinued, and the firefighters told me that if I showed poles just because it looked cool, it would be incorrect,” Dholakia said. “I didn’t want to undermine the film because of that one inaccuracy.”
Another creative liberty was taken to ensure that the faces of the actors were visible – in the film, the firefighters don’t wear masks or facial coverings.
Agni was filmed over a two-month period in 2022. Real fire was used in the action scenes. “There is real smoke coming from real fire plus fake smoke plus visual effects,” Dholakia said. “I wanted it to look real, I wanted the fire to travel across the walls and not stay in one place. We kept burning things down and then dousing them. We had four VFX companies working on the film.”
An American firefighter who had worked on a TV series on the same subject was called in as a consultant. He taught the crew a few hacks, such as how to shoot scenes with different actors in the same location. “The climax actually takes place in two small corridors – that was the most economical way,” Dholakia said.
The actors trained with professional firefighters for eight weeks, learning to hold water hoses and carry oxygen cylinders the right way. There are actual firefighters in the background in several scenes too.
Agni marks Dholakia’s return to filmmaking after seven years. He made his feature debut in 2005 with Parzania, inspired by the true story of a Parsi boy who went missing during the communal riots in Ahmedabad in 2002. After the Kashmir-set Lamhaa in 2010, Dholkia made his most well-known film, the Shah Rukh Khan-led gangster drama Raees, in 2017.
Soon after the completion of Raees, Dholakia had a heart attack, which set him back for several months. He was supposed to direct the Mithali Raj biopic Shabaash Mithu, but he walked out of the project after spending several months on it. The film was eventually made by Srijit Mukerji and released in 2022.
Perhaps Agni was the film Dholakia was destined to make. While the movie was originally meant to be in theatres, its release on Prime Video means that it will reach a wider viewership, Dholakia said.
“Farhan [Akhtar, the film’s co-producer] has especially been very passionate about this film, and he said, let’s get it out to the maximum number of countries,” Dholakia added. “Otherwise, it will get lost in all the box office bullshit that’s happening these days. We’ve made a film we’re proud of. We are going to screen it for as many firefighters as possible.”
