Anuparna Roy's Songs of Forgotten Trees arrives with the kind of festival buzz that suggests a major new voice in Indian cinema. Unfortunately, what it delivers is closer to a hollow whisper - a film so timid and self-consciously "poetic" that it collapses under its own weight.
At 77 minutes, the film should feel brisk, but Roy manages to stretch it into a sluggish crawl, padding every scene with languid silences and moody glances. This might have been effective if those pauses contained tension or unspoken meaning. Instead, they feel empty - the cinematic equivalent of someone mistaking ellipses for profound thought.
The story follows Thooya, a struggling actress who supplements her income through transactional relationships, and Swetha, a corporate migrant who rents space in Thooya's flat. On paper, their fragile bond could have been a moving exploration of intimacy and survival in Mumbai. On screen, it's little more than a vague suggestion. Thooya is sketched with some depth, but Swetha remains barely a character at all - an outline that never gains dimension. Their "connection" is so undercooked it registers more as a directorial intention than lived experience.
Visually and sonically, Roy reaches for lyricism - cramped interiors lit like stage sets, city noise blending with faint rural songs - but the effect often veers into pretension. Instead of immersive world-building, it feels like affectation, as though the film were checking boxes on an arthouse aesthetic rather than discovering its own voice.
Yes, Roy's empathy for marginalized women is commendable, and there are fleeting moments of tenderness. But empathy alone doesn't make a film compelling. Songs of Forgotten Trees mistakes mood for meaning and ambiguity for depth. What remains is a skeletal sketch, a film more concerned with appearing serious than actually saying something worth hearing.
Songs of Forgotten Trees proves that if you film enough silences and blank stares, someone will call it poetry.
