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★★★★
Directed by: #SagnikDuttaGupta
Written by: #SagnikDuttaGupta
Starring: #ArghyaRoy, #SohamGuhaPattader
On a stormy night, a needy man picks up a wallet full of money, only to find the owner observing him closely. To his surprise, the brooding owner begs him to keep the purse as he won’t be needing it anymore. It is revealed that the latter intends to commit suicide before the dawn. It's up to the poor, yet compassionate man to convince the grieving stranger to change his mind before it's too late.
Porityag (Abandonment) (2020) is the zero budget directorial debut of Indian NIT graduate Sagnik Dutta Gupta, who writes and directs this poignant social drama covering relevant topics like depression and suicide. These issues are not commonly addressed in mainstream media, especially in regard to the male population and this short delivers on a sincere, genuine piece encouraging viewers to become more aware of the problem.
The film is refreshing in that it involves two characters from seemingly different economic backgrounds, who are able to come together and share in the universal struggles which everyone at some point in their life faces. The short creates an involving atmospheric tone with effective dark, gritty cinematography from Sankha De and an immersive sound design which emphasises Foley over dialogue. The sound mixing is unfortunately uneven, however, and often distracts from the scene with exaggerated sounds of footsteps and splashes from water in a bottle sounding unnatural to the ears. It can be very off-putting.
Both characters are well established and performed by Arghya Roy as the thief and Soham Guha Pattader as the unnamed suicidal man. Roy acts as the friendly voice of reason to help the stranger see how he can find his own strength to overcome his demons and the blank unresponsive Pattader authentically captures the bleakness of depression.
The full emotional impact the short may have had is lost somewhat due to slow and meandering pacing which overshadows what could have been a riveting, small-scale piece of social drama. There is just a bit oo much of characters sitting about and bloats the short running time of fifteen minutes to make the narrative feel dragged out unnecessarily. A touching and cathartic ending does do well to make up for its admittedly slow middle portion.
Gupta’s delivers on a strong short debut film with an honest assessment of real social issues of depression and suicide amongst men. The two leads give good performances and the dark visual aesthetic is engrossing, but it ultimately suffers with poor sound mixing and meandering pacing issues.
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