Anvita Dutt's second directorial venture Qala is such a tedious watch. I'm sure she wanted to create a surreal, fantastical world (like her debut film Bulbbul) to inhabit this psychological period drama, but she missed by a mile this time.
The art direction is top-notch, with elegant set designs and gorgeous color schemes. Even the smallest props are carefully curated, showing hard work and attention to detail, but the result - a world built so wonderfully, appears delicate and beautiful but too artificial and lifeless.
The same is true for the performances, especially Tripti Dimri and Swastika Mukherjee; with their flat, one-note portrayal, they appeared more of a hypnotized human prop instead of traumatized, struggling souls. Babil Khan is equally bad. Amit Sial is good, but he only has two or three scenes.
Varun Grover is disappointing as the Urdu poet and lyricist- Majruh, who himself can't pronounce 'Khairiyat' correctly in a cringeworthy scene where he is correcting Qala's (Tripti) pronunciation.
The art direction is top-notch, with elegant set designs and gorgeous color schemes. Even the smallest props are carefully curated, showing hard work and attention to detail, but the result - a world built so wonderfully, appears delicate and beautiful but too artificial and lifeless.
The same is true for the performances, especially Tripti Dimri and Swastika Mukherjee; with their flat, one-note portrayal, they appeared more of a hypnotized human prop instead of traumatized, struggling souls. Babil Khan is equally bad. Amit Sial is good, but he only has two or three scenes.
Varun Grover is disappointing as the Urdu poet and lyricist- Majruh, who himself can't pronounce 'Khairiyat' correctly in a cringeworthy scene where he is correcting Qala's (Tripti) pronunciation.