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What The 'Titli' Poster Tells You About The Film And Its Characters

What The 'Titli' Poster Tells You About The Film And Its Characters
Courtesy Loudspeaker Media

Most movie posters typically don't aim to tell you much. In the case of most commercial films, the poster usually focuses just on the film's lead (or leads) embellished with some neat graphic design and typography. In several cases, of course, it's because the makers don't want to reveal much about the film.

In the case of Kanu Behl's directorial debut Titli, whose poster was unveiled last week, the poster tells you quite a bit, albeit in a somewhat cryptic manner. The film's striking poster — featuring cast-members Amit Sial, Shashaank Arora, Ranvir Shorey, Shivani Raghuvanshi, and Lalit Behl (the director's father) — sports the tagline 'Har family, family nahi hoti' (Every family isn't a family). According to an emailed press release, the phrase was coined by filmmaker Aditya Chopra, whose Yash Raj Films is presenting the film.

However, a closer look at the poster reveals a fair bit about the film and its characters. Behl explained its visual cues in an email to HuffPost India:

Titli explores the idea of five people of a dysfunctional family staying under a roof behaving with specific power equations with each other. The idea was to focus on the core centrality of each character. The hammer that Vikram [Shorey] holds describes how he psychologically hammers everyone in the film. Clad in thick checked shirt, Bawla [Sial] holding a katta gives a glance of his complex nature (sic). Neelu [Raghuvanshi] who is holding her bag depicts her eagerness to run away at any moment. Daddy [Behl] holding his medicines seems to be powerless yet is manipulative of everyone around. Titli, stuck between all of them, has a reluctant participant's look and his own slackly pointing (sic) katta.

Titli, which has been produced by Dibakar Banerjee, premiered in competition under the Un Certain Regard section of last year's Cannes International Film Festival. The crime noir received positive reviews from publications such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

The film is slated to release in India on October 30.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.