Qala, a new Netflix release, opens to a classical singer, Qala [Tripti Damri], who has realised her childhood dream: winning the Golden Vinyl award. She poses for photos, answers journalists’ questions, and smiles. Her bliss lasts for two minutes — and never returns for even half as long till the film gets over. Because Qala’s gender decided her fate.

Her mother, Urmila [Swastika Mukherjee], gave birth to twins. The boy died; Qala survived. Since then, Urmila has defined her daughter by not who she is, but what she’s not. Not a boy. Not a man. Not capable. Not deserving. Not lovable. Not enough.

Qala has fought for musical recognition — and dignity — since her teenage years. But can any acclaim substitute a mother’s love? Can even the fastest athlete outrun her shadow? Anvita Dutt’s Qala tells the story of a triumph measured in gasps of loss.

The first striking feature about the drama is its structure. Qala’s past haunts her, so it makes perfect sense that this story will be told in flashbacks. Dutt cuts between the past (set in a Himachal Pradesh village) and the present (set in Calcutta’s film industry) — both in pre-Independent India — inverting narrative causality.

Anvita Dutt tells the story of a triumph measured in gasps of loss. But the way it resolves its plot is unsatisfying

We first find the effect and then the cause.

It heightens intrigue and builds a fascinating audience-protagonist relationship. We want to unearth her secrets; she wants to bury them. Qala, for instance, loathes milk. We find out the reason much later. But that, too, isn’t the complete answer, as the climax hides another layer. These tiered revelations justify her character, because confronting her past all at once will make her insane — and she is going insane.

Qala is steeped in music, but the visuals are as musical. Siddharth Diwan, like most impressive cinematographers, doesn’t just capture a story but elevates it. In a film filled with two-faced people, he often illuminates just one half of their faces. The characters are also filmed from a side view — we feel distant from them even when they’re close.

Sometimes he toys with our expectations. Qala lives in a mansion surrounded by snow. A constellation of warm bulbs lights the indoors, while the outside is an unending cold desert. But it’s her house — ruled by her mother — that suffocates Qala. The conventional symbols are just that… symbols.

And sure enough, we get a few scenes — one featuring her seduction — where Qala finds warmth in the expansive cold. In another sequence, suffering a meltdown, she bolts out of the front door and collapses on the snow. The indoor lights look at her from afar, as if mocking her. Suffocation and liberation, warm and cold, expectations and reality — all captured in one shot in contrasting yellows and whites.

I can rewatch this film on mute.

Which is why when the dramatic cinematography underscores a pivotal character, it produces an enchanting effect. A spotlight flows a beam of light. A young singer on stage. The camera glides to face him: Jagan (Babil Khan — Irrfan’s son). His voice leaps; his rendition slays. It captivates two audience members: Qala, who has lost her importance, and Urmila, who has found her son.

The familial and musical legacy — oscillating between yearning and ownership — defines the fundamental Urmila-Qala tension. Qala’s grandfather, Diwaan Sahab, was a legendary exponent of the Thumri style. The mother covets the gharana; the daughter craves a ghar.

As Qala opens up, via Jagan’s inclusion, it makes us descend into a palace of secrets. Urmila favours Jagan and snubs Qala. The house has found its (repulsive) status quo once more: Everything revolves around the man. Qala is at best a spectator, at worst, a server. Jagan performs; Qala serves him milk. Urmila praises; Qala watches. Jagan swallows the spotlight; Qala munches shadows.

Dutt’s directorial style takes big swings: It’s seductive, dangerous and deliciously melodramatic. She also crafts meticulous dread, persisting with symbols: milk, mercury, repeated dialogues. A parallel tension, meanwhile, simmers through Qala’s repressed angst. Bit by bit, scene by scene, the rubber band gets tense and tight and restless — drumming its feet, waiting to snap.

We wait. And it does around the half-way mark: Qala performing; Jagan spitting blood in a corner. This is a film in sync with its tune.

The actors make us buy this world for the most part. Damri, essaying a challenging role, evokes sympathy without seeming pitiful. Mukherjee doesn’t need to be ‘villainous’ to be a villain: The mother inflicts death by a thousand smiles — a cruelty that looks life-like. The soft-faced Babil’s performance, too, evades easy descriptors. He knows what’s happening to Qala and yet, blinded by attention and ambition, doesn’t — or can’t — care.

Even the actors in the supporting roles shine. Amit Sial gets the most stereotypical character — of a powerful producer drunk on power — but he creates small openings in a generic canvas, producing a fresh portrayal. Varun Grover — as lyricist Majrooh, Qala’s only male ally — excels as well: calm, pleasant, quietly empathetic.

At one point in the second half, Qala is reading the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The reference works in several ways.

First, it justifies Qala’s character — both in her ascent and descent. Second, a Scottish Gothic story feels at home in a psychological ‘desi goth’. Third, it also describes the polarity of Dutt’s filmography.

Her last movie, the supernatural thriller Bulbul — also photographed by Diwan — was high on style, low on substance (and suspense). Qala, however, looks like a piece from a different filmmaker. It delighted me so much that my subconscious cheering for the movie (my default setting) almost turned conscious: I wanted the film to succeed, to ace its last mile.

But in the last 20 minutes, Mr Hyde appears. Or the manifestation of Qala’s guilt. The movie takes refuge in stale and obvious symbols — snow falling on her in the recording studio (and elsewhere) — stalling the story, tiring out tension. You want the film to regain its purpose and momentum. Instead, you get an increasingly unhinged Qala and snow — and snow. Some more snow — a lot of snow. Did I say snow?

It feels all the more jarring because the first 90-odd minutes, building character and escalating stakes, slithered with purpose, promising a venomous bite. But Qala’s final stretch makes you believe that it didn’t have much more to say: that the writing infused this stagnancy. No one wants to see a ventriloquist’s hands.

The climax made me remember the movie’s previous monotonicity that I had overlooked (considering it a quibble then). Take the mother-daughter relationship. For some time, it’s suspended in an ambiguous zone. But as the plot gets deeper, the bond becomes more and more unidimensional: a cruel Urmila, a helpless Qala; more cruelty, more helplessness. It steals the film’s dynamism, making it way too linear to sustain intrigue in a two-hour-long feature.

Worse, Dutt resorts to a formulaic trope — which seems both convenient and lazy — to resolve the plot. This is the Bulbul territory: using the ‘deceit of aesthetics’ to cover a flimsy plot, making something more ‘meaningful’ than what it is. This detour doesn’t nullify the film’s merits, but it also feels uniquely frustrating.

At least Qala retains its poetic ring right till the end: a movie about a mother betraying her daughter ends up betraying its audience. —By arrangement with The Wire

Published in Dawn, ICON, january 1st, 2023