Qala Review : A breathtaking take on familial relationships, mental health and art

Qala is the Hindi word for art. It is also the name of our protagonist and the name of the film in this masterwork of a Hindi psychological drama. Set in the 1940s Kolkata, the story revolves around the troubled relationship of a mother and daughter. 

Swastika Mukherjee as Urmila Manjushree, the beautiful and cold-hearted, stern but musically gifted mother of Qala is a wonder to behold. She brings with her the grace and charm of a bygone era in Hindi cinema. 

Tripti Dimri as Qala gives us both a heart-breaking and breathe-taking performance in this story, of a girl who wants nothing more than the love and approval of her own mother.

Babil Khan as Jagan Batwal - an up-and-coming singer that sings purely because of his love of and for music (art for art’s sake, if one may) is one that sets quite the benchmark for him. He has a certain ease on screen and one definitely hopes to see him on there more often.

Qala is director Anvita Dutt and actor Tripti Dimri’s second collaboration and this creative duo is honestly a match made in heaven. It is spectacular - the entire film, from the set designs, the costumes, the music, the lighting, the acting and of course, the writing.

From the onset itself, we sense a tension between the mother and her infant, a newborn baby that survives while her twin, a brother, that doesn’t. A fact that forever scars the relationship the mother-daughter share. Most of Qala’s childhood is spent practicing her vocals, her music, making it better, acing it. Even when she is thrown outside the house by her mother, in the backdrop of snowy Himachal - Qala aims for nothing more than to get her vocals right.

When Jagan (Babil Khan) enters the scene and enthralls her mother with his singing. Qala is bound to be jealous. All she has ever done is practice, tried to impress her mother, then a boy with the voice of an angel walks into their life and Manjushree (Urmila Mukherjee) begins to believe that he is, indeed, her son. 

This family that Manjushree (Urmila Mukherjee) had envisioned, a son that could carry forward the legacy of her husband, call himself a Pandit - that is what she saw in Jagan. The son she believed he was. She uses motherhood as a veil and knows how to wield it too. It is this veil that allows her to bring Jagan into her house but never allows Qala to really see or know her own mother.

But it isn’t Jagan’s character that is an intervention, it is his death. Even years later, after Qala has received the prestigious Golden Vinyl, it is her rise and the skeletons from her past that restrict her growth as a person and as an artist. How does one live with an unapproving mother when she's all you've got? How does one live with fame? How does one live with fault? And what does all the ‘shor’ (noise) do for Qala and qala (art) too?

The film might not answer all the questions, or give you the answers you want but it will show, in a breath-taking manner that love shouldn’t be so hard. Love for art, for family, for oneself. And that if and when you love someone/something you should give it a chance.

Definitely worth your time and attention, if you haven't helped yourself to a viewing already.