Breathe absorbs tropes of American cop show
The show: Breathe, Season 1, Episode 2 The moment: The surveillance trope Danny’s (R. Madhavan) 6-year-old son needs new lungs, but he’s fourth on the organ donor list. So Danny reluctantly decides to kill donors to move his son up. Using a long-lens camera, he surveilles the home of retired teacher Sudhir (Gyan Prakash).
Click-click-click, Danny photographs Sudhir’s life. “Son leaves for work at 8:45 a.m.,” he says into a recorder.
Click-click-click. “Maid comes in at 9:45,” Danny records.
Click-click-click. “Pav-wala (bread seller) comes in at 4:45 p.m.”
Via montage, Danny surveilles for days. Then he notices: When the maid shakes up dust, Sudhir dives for his asthma inhaler. Bingo.
This eight-episode Amazon India Original dropped last week in 200 countries and it illustrates how the entire world has absorbed the tropes of the American cop show.
(A hardened cop with a drinking problem soon begins closing in on Danny.)
The result is a head-spinning mishmash of distinctly Indian details (that pav-wala); abrupt tone changes (Episode 1 screeches to a halt so Danny can deliver a PSA about organ donation: “Did you know that three million people have died in India since 2005 because they didn’t receive an organ transplant on time?”); and out-of-date clichés (it’s unclear why Danny needs all those photos, since he’s recording his notes. Apparently he has yet to see the cop shows that warn against a paper trail).
The odd montages, the pulsing score! The establishing shots of city life! The reveal of the cop’s secret misery! The delivery system for this show — international streaming — is very 21st century. But the esthetic is pure 1990s. Call it Mumbai Blue. Breathe streams on Amazon Prime Video. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on popculture moments. She usually appears Tuesday and Thursday.