Call me old school, but watching the new Friday release on TV is not the same experience.
Call me an optimist, because I am still waiting to go back to the theatres to watch cinema the way it is meant to be.
In the meantime, we settle into our rooms and catch the latest in our shorts and pyjamas.
We’ve been bowled over for a while now, by the ability of the new crop of TV series on various OTT platforms to tell unique, bold, meaningful stories. Stories we’ve not seen before. Imagination we’ve not been exposed to. Visualisation we’ve not experienced. Be it international content or Indian.
What is new and great to see (maybe the glass half-full of our year in lockdown?) is how mainstream cinema (aka Bollywood) is going down the same path. In many ways, it’s the perfect meeting of cinema with OTT, that liberates moviemakers from the shackles of ‘perceived commercial success’ to tell stories in the way they would like to. This bout of creative exploration - both quantity of it (so many films like these) and quality of it - is really very very welcome.
#Pagglait being the new kid on the block, in this world of "OTT Cinema" (that is, ironically, anything but OTT!)
And director-writer Umesh Bist puts out a good fare.
Pagglait is the story of a newly married-and-widowed young woman, Sandhya (Sanya Malhotra) who, through the course of the 13 days of death ceremony rituals and family chaos and politics, eventually finds herself. It’s a simple story, but told with a lot of heart, that strikes a chord with the viewer.
The strength of the film comes from the building of its characters and their relationships with each other. It’s not a linear story of one protagonist and her relations with all the other characters. But a story where the other characters have clear emotions between themselves as well, that run independently of the main story of the protagonist. This is the real beauty of the film. We see all these different people in the extended family and see their perspectives and their stories too. While the main story runs with Sandhya, we equally enjoy the story of the others in the family.
Shivendra (Ashutosh Rana), as the dead son’s father and Usha (Sheeba Chaddha) as the mother, simultaneously trying to grieve their sudden loss while managing the home affairs of ceremonies and guests is heart-wrenching. We can feel what they are going through, even as they are not able to admit their own feelings to each other, while trying to face this ultimate truth of life (which, ironically, is death). Tayyaji (Raghubir Yadav), as the super-traditional almost-cold-hearted master of all ceremonies fiercely protecting the interest of family and customs, at the cost of anything and everything. Alok (Chetan Sharma), as the younger brother, reluctantly doing the ceremonies as the next of kin, while secretly nurturing a crush on his widowed bhabhi. Nazia (Shruti Sharma), as Sandhya’s best friend, tolerating the borderline religious discrimination of the household while still fiercely loyal to Sandhya and her family. Then an ensemble of relatives, including Sandhya’s parents, various chachas and buas, neighbours and friends, each with their own parallel stories, that make the film feel real and human. Even Aakanksha (Sayani Gupta) as the ex-girlfriend of the deceased, playing an important role in Sandhya’s journey, brings as much to the protagonist as much as telling her own back-story, in just a few scenes. And of course Sandhya’s own story of coming to grip with the sudden start and end of a 5-month marriage, trying to understand the situation by understanding her husband who she knew only for a short while. And through it all understanding her own self.
If telling these multiple parallel stories into one story, is the strength of the film, not sticking to it till the end is probably the main fault of the film. As the film comes closer to the end, we see the richness of these multiple narratives fading away, and all merging into once again the trap of the "only thing that matters is the heroine's story". It felt like Umesh Bist got tired of trying to keep up with his own vision and decided to simplify it into the only resolution that was easy.
In many ways, Sandhya’s journey is reminiscent of Rani’s journey in Queen (2014), where after being rudely dumped on her wedding day, she goes through the journey of finding herself and her life. Pagglait is an equally beautiful journey. Whereas Rani took a journey outside across Paris and Amsterdam to find her inner self, Sandhya takes the journey inside within the walls of her home and the streets of her city. But while Rani’s journey was always a solo one, Sandhya’s journey is a collective one, which includes the members of her family. And this is the part that Pagglait misses in resolving for us. This is the part that leaves us a little un-fulfilled as we pick the remote and exit from the Netflix app (as opposed to walking out of the theatre).
But, in the larger scheme of things, it’s a small fault to place with the film. And overall the film stays with you as one of the better movies we’ve seen recently. The performance of the cast is excellent. Even Sanya Malhotra is not as irritating as her other previous (and recent films) and delivers an understated, manageable performance.
All in all, a great start from Umesh Bist, who seems a promising new director, with a really good first (almost) film of significance. Umesh, hope you keep at telling these stories and fine-tuning your craft to keep getting better and giving us more of these human stories. It reminded me of another gifted director, Imtiaz Ali (for a very different genre of course) and his first (almost) film Jab We Met, which we loved but felt something missing. And how he later went on to perfect his craft with his subsequent films. May you find and complete your craft as well, Umesh. We will be looking forward to your next one.
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