Anurag Kashyap took to Instagram on Wednesday to shower praises on Jaideep Ahlawat’s Paatal Lok Season 2, calling his performance a ‘masterclass in acting’. The filmmaker congratulated the entire team behind the show, describing it as having ‘poignant writing’ and praised it for ‘showing us the darkness that resides collectively within us as a society’.
Taking to Instagram, Anurag quoted the South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho from his Oscar acceptance speech for Parasite in 2019 and wrote, “’Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films’, said the celebrated South Korean film maker in his award-winning acceptance speech for Parasite. Many moons ago, when we were all part of the birth of long form in India and were proudly displaying the tag of “look what we did with Sacred Games” dropped a powerful, bleak, chronicling of our lower depths, Pataal Lok” created by Sudip Sharma and one of the directors being Avinash Arun Dhaware.”
He added, “I always believed it was peak writing, directing, performance and can’t be out done. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 2025 started with a bang with Black Warrant and the bar was already set high. A week later dropped Pataal Lok Season 2.”
The filmmaker said that he was busy and wasn’t able to catch the show earlier as he had also changed his sleep routine. However, when he started watching it, he got ‘sucked into its world’. “The opening sequence of Jonathan Thom’s body being found, just took my remaining sleep away and I got sucked into the world of Hathi Ram Choudhary so fast, like it was a quicksand. The depths of human darkness that he dwells into, always looking for some hope, that will and won’t come by."
He added, "It’s a thriller, a mystery, it’s dark, set in a region which we know of but don’t pay attention to, armed by very poignant writing, no holding back the punches, mirroring or hypocrisy, showing us the darkness that resides collectively within us as a society,” he said.
Praising Jaideep’s portrayal of the unfit cop, Anurag said, “As for Jaideep Ahlawat. This for me is not just his best performance to date. I would call the best performance of 2020’s by any actor I have seen here. He isn’t acting, he embodies Hathiram Choudhary. It’s a masterclass of acting. I am in awe.”
The series also stars Ishwak Singh, Tillotama Shome, Gul Panag, Nagesh Kukunoor and Jahnu Barua in pivotal roles. It has been directed by Avinash Arun Dhaware and created by Sudip Sharma and was released on Prime Video on January 17.
