Kolkata has often been portrayed on screen through its iconic yellow taxis, the grandeur of Victoria Memorial at sunset, the vibrancy of Durga Puja, and the lively conversations over cups of tea. However, director Abhinay Deo’s seven-episode web series Brown, streaming on ZEE5, presents a very different side of the city. This Kolkata is cold, bleak, drenched in incessant rain, and wrapped in an unsettling silence. It is a silence that does not soothe but rather instils fear. Based on Abheek Barua’s acclaimed novel City of Death, the series opens with a chilling murder. Filled with traumatised and emotionally fractured characters, it explores how people who have been broken from within attempt to hold themselves together.
