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Qala (2022) Directed by Anvita Dutt 

“Kyun nahi samajhti aap meri baat? Main aapko khush karne ke liye jeeti hu, aur aap kabhi khushi nahi hoti” 

Humans fathom the distinctive forms of unconditional love and acceptance through their mother’s warmth and nurturance. It shapes a person’s core and moulds it into their idea of self-identity. But imagine a child constantly struggling with a whirlwind of emotional disturbances arising from strained relationships with the mother. Qala is a heart-rending story of a mother’s love entangled with emotional coldness, unrealistic expectations, and unmet desires that cast a dark shadow of unhealed wounds over a child’s life. 

Synopsis of the movie: 

The movie “Qala” is a tragic tale of ambitions, pursuit of perfection, guilt, and self-destructive actions that lead to trauma. Set in the 1930s, this story revolves around a talented budding playback singer, Qala, who navigates her path through fame and fortune in a male-dominated music industry.

Qala’s journey marks an intense desire for her mother’s approval throughout her career. She was emotionally forced to compete with her deceased sibling for her mother’s attention from her early years. This constant comparison and the feeling of not measuring up to her late sibling’s singing abilities weigh heavily on Qala, creating deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. Her mother’s relentless demands shape Qala into a perfectionist, and her inability to live up to those impossible standards feeds her internalized guilt and self-loathing. 

In the film, Qala’s rise to fame is juxtaposed with her growing psychological disintegration. With their advancing career, Qala faces the harsh realities of the music industry, where she is both feted for her voice and exploited for her talent. This visually striking and psychologically haunting drama progresses when Qala gets enmeshed in an intricate, unhealthy relationship with a fellow musician, who initially serves as a love interest and a mentor.

These circumstances further deepen Qala’s sense of inadequacy and force her to confront her ghosts from the past. The emotional weight that she carries begins to display in her deteriorating state of mind, and her paranoia increases as the ghost of her dead sibling haunts her mind with a feeling that she will never be good enough. While winning the public’s admiration and gaining recognition from influential figures in the industry, Qala’s further isolation is combined with the crushing burden of the traumatic experience and perceived antagonism regarding her accomplishments that add up to an emotional catastrophe. 

The shadows, reflections, and dreamlike sequences reflect Qala’s internal battle, which fuels the unresolved trauma. The mother figure remains central to the film, and the complex dynamics between Qala and her mother drive much of the plot. During the climax, Qala’s fragile psyche descends into madness that blurs the lines between reality and delusions

Psychological Perspective on the Movie: 

Melanie Klein’s Object Relations Theory of Psychoanalysis helps in providing a subtle understanding of Qala’s emotional devastation due to the internalized relationships with her mother and the unresolved trauma that has built her psyche. The “paranoid-schizoid position” and the “depressive position” by Klein could be traced within Qala’s emotional journey when early object relations and internalized fantasies shape an individual’s behavior and conflict.

In the early stages of Qala’s life, her experience mirrors Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position, in which the infant perceives the world or objects in their surroundings as either “entirely good” or “entirely bad.” The objects are often an infant’s caregiver. Qala’s relationship with her primary caregiver is central to when her mother is both the source of her emotional nourishment and the source of her pain. Her mother constantly belittles Qala’s singing against her deceased sibling throughout her childhood.

The dichotomy between the idea of being a “good” child, which Qala could never replace, and being a “bad” child, reflecting Qala’s inadequacy, leaves Qala feeling overwhelmingly rejected. These positions create extreme feelings of love and hate for the same person. For instance, when Qala is made to sing before her mother’s approval, this tension between such conflicting emotions comes alive. Indifference from the mother toward Qala’s success, especially in comparison to an idealized memory of a deceased sibling, comes close to replicating the paranoid-schizoid position, in which love and hate sit side by side, as a disjointed and anarchic emotional state.

As Qala grows older and enters a depressive position, a phase marked by the recognition of a more integrated view of the self when, she begins to feel guilt and sadness over her perceived inadequacies. She is no longer just a helpless child needing her mother’s approval but a woman caught between the need to preserve her career and the crushing weight of her unresolved childhood trauma. The depressive position emerges as Qala begins to feel overwhelming guilt over her perceived failure to meet her mother’s impossible expectations. When Qala’s success as a singer escalates professionally and emotionally, it reflects Klein’s notion that the child’s realization of their capacity to hurt or disappoint others leads to sadness and fear. 

The bond with her mentor, another musician, reflects a very special element of Klein’s “projective identification.”. Qala develops an emotional dependency on him, and she starts transferring feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy to him, which impacts how he reacts toward her. Qala undergoes unhealthy mutual projections and insecure attachment that deepens the emotional scars and confirms her fears of being inadequate and unlovable.

The climax of Qala’s disintegration is when she is overwhelmed by delusions, and the haunting memory of her deceased sibling represents the unresolved conflicts from her early development. Her psychological disintegration reflects Klein’s notion of how the unconscious fantasies from early life, particularly those involving the “good” and “bad” parts of the mother, can haunt the adult psyche, leading to a distorted sense of self and others. 

In the final moments of the movie, when Qala faces her internalized feelings of guilt and sorrow, the audience is left with a woman stuck within the entrapments of her very early object relations and who could not reconcile her desire for love with the trauma injected by her mother’s rejection. It is Klein’s theory that unresolved early conflicts are carried throughout life, meaning destructive behaviors and emotional pain. Qala ultimately symbolizes the ravaging impact of early psychological trauma and the intricate relations between love, guilt, and self-worth, as suggested by Klein’s psychoanalytic theory. 

Deeper Understanding through its Music and Cinematography: 

Each song reflects Qala Manjushree’s state of mind and provides insight into her emotional conflicts, ambition, guilt, and desperate quest for maternal approval. Songs like “Ghode Pe Sawar” and “Shauq” serve as milestones in Qala’s career, marking her professional success while subtly hinting at the personal cost of her ambition.

“Ghode Pe Sawar” is bright and melodic, but its vivacity and liveliness in sound tell of stark contradictions in a more personal plane to private despair. Sometimes, it was so apparent in lyrics; both levels-there were dual meanings-of life with its super-sensational glitter, on one level, and a layering deeper than this to show the depth of vulnerability and longings for acceptance. In sharp contrast, “Shauq” is steeped in sadness, representing the tragic fallouts of her rivalry with Jagan, the male singer who has been pursued unto death. Its haunting melody reflects her guilt and psychological burden, dwelling on her moral conflict and emotional fragility. 

The same elements of isolation and yearning are also stated through “Phero Na Najariya” and “Nirbhau Nirvair.” The former, with its soulful rendering, marks Qala’s yearning to be on her mother’s more attentive and affectionate side, especially from her mother. It gradually assumes the elements of suppressed emotions and suffocating silence within her maternal relationship. “Nirbhau Nirvair” draws on spiritual and philosophical undertones, illustrating the film’s exploration of inner peace and the unattainable ideal of living without fear or resentment that Qala tragically fails to achieve. 

The film uses framing and composition to convey isolation and loneliness, frequently positioning Qala as a small figure in vast, empty spaces that visually embody her feelings of being engulfed by fame and disconnected from the world around her. Mirrors are a recurring visual motif symbolizing self-reflection and duality; fragmented reflections of Qala often represent her fractured psyche and deteriorating self-perception

The strained mother-daughter relationship is emphasized through cold, harsh lighting in scenes involving her mother, where shadows dominate the frame to evoke emotional suppression and judgment. The spatial distance between the characters depicts the lack of warmth and a daughter’s longing for her mother’s approval. 

Ambition and the fleeting nature of fame are portrayed through contrasting lighting schemes—golden hues illuminate her moments of public success, but dark shadows linger within these frames, suggesting the persistent inner darkness that fame cannot dispel. Close-ups on Qala’s face are frequently used to capture subtle shifts in expression, drawing the audience into her emotional fragility and the crushing weight of her ambition. Symbolic imagery, such as recurring snow (representing purity lost) and a fragile glass chandelier (symbolizing her delicate mental state), adds layers of meaning to her journey.

Dreamlike sequences and surreal imagery externalize her psychological trauma, with hallucinations and distorted figures symbolizing her guilt and anxiety over her past decisions at the end of the movie.

References +

Huntley, M. (1978). Book review: Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, 23(4), 264–266. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674377802300410

Kline, P. (2014). Psychology and Freudian theory. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315800295

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