In the late 1700s, English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham came up with the concept of the 'panopticon' — a circular prison with cells along the perimeter wall and a central watchtower which allows guards to observe the inmates without the inmates knowing whether they’re being watched at any given moment. Bentham reasoned that if the prisoners could be watched but never knew when they were watched, the prisoners would need to always follow the rules. The French philosopher Michel Foucault revitalised public interest in the panopticon in his book 'Discipline and Punish' (1975). Foucault used the concept to illustrate the tendency of disciplinary societies to subjugate their citizens through surveillance.
In many ways, we now live in a society that is not unlike an open-world panopticon. From social media to public spaces, we are perpetually watched, tracked, analysed, and conditioned to comply. In cinematographer-turned-director Udit Rana's directorial debut Taak (2024), a New Delhi nightclub stands in as a microcosm of this modern surveillance state.
The short film revolves around Shalini (played with raw, restrained intensity by the masterful Jyoti Dogra), a former wrestler and a single mother who works as the security head of the nightclub when a security breach shakes her workplace. The club management uses this incident to enforce a new policy: mandatory smartwatches for all staff members to track their movements. Held accountable for her team's failure, Shalini is pressured to enforce the trackers' usage or face severe consequences. At the same time, her situation is further complicated by Komal, a young recruit from her village, whose resistance to being tracked causes friction with the management. What begins as an upgrade in workplace safety soon spirals into something more insidious: the normalisation of constant digital surveillance.
At a time when concerns about the ethics and implications of surveillance routinely dominate cultural, social, and political discourses, Khurana's film hones in on how questions about surveillance often intersect with contemporary questions about gender, labour, privacy, and women's autonomy. While Komal resists, Shalini complies — in fact she becomes the enabler and the enforcer of the surveillance regime within the workers. In feminist theory, this is referred to as 'kyriarchy' — a complex social system or set of interconnected systems built on multiple forms of domination and submission that goes beyond just patriarchy, where people can simultaneously experience oppression and privilege.
Through Shalini's complex, conflicting experience of the nightclub's surveillance system, in which she is both oppressed and an instrument of oppression herself, Taak sheds light on how the modern surveillance state includes the working class in their own oppression. As the trackers continually monitor the workers, we see how anxieties about being watched and followed 24x7 affects the workers relationship with each other — with seemingly irreconcilable rifts appearing where once was a sense of camaraderie, familiality, and solidarity.
"In this modern yet unequal society, our feudalistic mindsets often seize control. Our historical prejudices regarding class and caste shape how we practice our present and envision our future. The material of cinema is time, which forces both makers and audiences to experience a lived reality. It allows us to dream and enter the fantasies of people who are usually made invisible due to the silos in which we live. This makes cinema a powerful tool for empathy, far more subversive and potent than any propaganda can be."Udit Khurana
In Taak, Khurana delivers a tightly focused, quietly haunting meditation on labour, gender, and surveillance. The film never screams its message but instead lets you sit in the discomfort of it. In Taak, as in modern societies, surveillance is never overtly violent, but its emotional and psychological impact is devastating.
Taak was developed under the Museum of Imagined Futures' (MOIF) Storiculture Impact Fellowship on the theme 'Digital Societies'. The MOIF is a transmedia initiative that uses storytelling and speculative design to explore the intersection of technology, society, and culture. The Storiculture Impact Fellowship, supported by Omidyar Network India, is a key component of MOIF, supporting the development of films that explore the impact of AI and surveillance on society, particularly focusing on marginalised communities and their contributions to the development of AI.
Taak had its world premiere in the Focus South Asia segment of the 2024 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and later screened at DIFF (Dharamshala International Film Festival), where it was praised for its minimalist storytelling and thematic weight.
Watch a teaser for the film here:
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