Visualizing the layers of psyche: Madness, abjection, and the crisis of self in Qala

Chora, according to Julia Kristeva, is the pre-lingual stage of a child. It is a chaotic space of the psyche where the child fails to distinguish its subjective existence from its mother. In Anvita Dutt Guptani’s 2022 movie Qala, the eponymous protagonist questions the very subjectivity of her own existence. Connecting Julia Kristeva’s concepts of ‘Chora’ and ‘abjection,’ the paper aims to highlight how the identity of Qala remains enmeshed with her mother, owing to which she fails to untangle her own ‘self’ with that of the (m)Other. The leitmotif of flight, reiterated through various imageries of wings and butterflies, emphasizes Qala’s innermost desire to break free. Pertaining to this, the paper accentuates Qala’s constant endeavour to escape from incarceration at the cost of her inner destruction of self and the eventual catastrophe of her personal life. It showcases how Qala’s concealed and repressed emotions are transformed into anxiety, leading to a tragic turn in the course of the story, captured through the dark visual artistry, the bleak colour palette, and the snowy setting of the movie reflecting the repressed layer of the human psyche, the ‘Id,’ the unconscious, accentuating the character’s inner pessimism, abjection, hopelessness, disorientation, and anomic disconnection.