Pagglait Analysis

Pagglait (2021)

Written and Directed by: Umesh Bisht
Starring: Sanya Malhotra, Asutosh Rana, Shruti Sharma, Raghubir Yadav
Music Composed by: Arijit Singh.

Streaming on Netflix. 

It's a beautiful coming-of-age story set in a super quirky world. The film is set in a funeral, after a family loses a young member of the family. They portray the pain so well. I think films like this, like 'The Sky is Pink' - to portray such pain authentically, the creators would've gone through such pain themselves. I can immediately think of Ashutosh Rana's reaction when his brother says that he thinks of himself as Adani or Ambani - he controls his tears, his voice breaks and it's heart breaking. The element that Sandhya can not feel a thing after her husband dies is sad enough, because it only goes to say that she never felt good either when he was there. She deserved to be loved, to be made feel special - it's such a basic primal desire of a human - to feel the want and to feel wanted, to feel desired and she never felt it - because he was never into the marriage. And when she gets to know that he was in love before - it's even more heartbreaking, because then she starts thinking if it's her that's a problem. Then it starts becoming a question of self worth. 

The setting comes through very well, even with secondary characters - for example, with the teenage couple. Everyone's costume - everyone has their sweaters on - and their hair is done in a natural way. The way they shoot it, it's not expressionistic and it's not in a way that the style takes the front hand in any shot - the way they shoot, edit and sound design this film is for the style to be invisible. The music was so dramatic and good though, our attention is called to the music - especially the flute in the ending, it shows the maturation and the coming-of-age of Sandhya so well. Her leaving the cheque at home, returning the photo to Akansha - all are such good signs of liberation - she became free of the shackles that men put on her through money. She became free of the insecurities she had with Akansha when she returns her photo. She's gotten over all of it now, and has come of age now.