On the evening of February 17th, the Bangladesh National Museum witnessed hundreds of local audiences eagerly lining up to catch director Shankha Dasgupta‘s debut feature, Dear Maloti (Priyo Maloti, 2024). In this bottlenecked throng, one can identify an ironic parallel with one of the film’s central objects of critique: the relentless, deadly chaos of Dhaka’s urban traffic.
The film follows Maloti, a pregnant, lower-caste Hindu woman, whose economically modest but emotionally fulfilled married life becomes shattered, when her husband, Polash, gets caught in a deadly fire at the local market, where he works. His body burned to the point of being unrecognizable, Polash is rushed to a vehicle, but Dhaka’s traffic hinders the driver making it to the hospital in time. Polash dies amidst a chaotic sea of gridlocked vehicles, leaving behind the grieving, penniless Maloti.
What makes Dear Maloti so captivating—and the most outstanding of the 23rd DIFF’s Bangladesh Panorama features—is the way that Dasgupta cleverly mobilizes Maloti as a prism through which he simultaneously sheds light upon multiple pressing social issues plaguing contemporary Dhaka. Indeed, the city and Bangladesh’s substandard infrastructure find a physical form in the intense traffic. But we also identify it in the endless bureaucratic hurdles that the lower-class Maloti is thrust into, as she endeavors to claim financial compensation for Polash’s death. After arranging for his body to be cremated according to the Hindu funeral customs, Maloti learns too late that she needs a hospital-issued death certificate to obtain the compensation. Without this document, she falls prey to a male-dominated bureaucracy that subjects her to an insufferable degree of hostility and disrespect. Her agony is palpable—not least the product of Mehazabien Chowdhury‘s stunning performance as Maloti, who carries the film with grit and precision. The film marks Chowdhury’s transition from a 15-year-long career in television to cinema—an endeavor she has accomplished with a spectacular command.
Throughout the film, Maloti clings to the ever-diminishing slimmer of hope under impossible circumstances. Having grown up an orphan, she has no parental support on which to fall back. She seeks a lawyer for help, but his exorbitant fees render his services unfeasible. At some point, Maloti gets stalked and threatened by a man who claims to be Polash’s former creditor. With every beat, the film pronounces its markedly sceptical outlook. Dasgupta, who also wrote the film, carefully refrains from offering any kind of neat resolution to this scepticism. The creditor presses Maloti to forge fake documents to obtain the compensation money, of which he intends to get a sizable share. Though initially resistant, Maloti eventually yields to this corruption, which undermines the integrity, which was the core of her character.
Dear Maloti‘s sceptical, gendered critique is layered: we see this in the way that Dasgupta skillfully dovetails his critique of the micro (familial) with macro (political) structures. While navigating Dhaka’s corrupt, abusive men, Maloti is simultaneously burdened by her father-in-law. Despite not giving her any support, he nevertheless demands a substantial portion of the compensation, which he also persistently blames Maloti for failing to obtain. His interest in Maloti hinges on two prospects: the money and her giving birth to a baby boy. His patriarchal preference for a baby-boy lays the ground for the tragic ending. In the film’s final act, Maloti gives birth prematurely. In a critical condition, she desperately needs a transfusion to stay alive. However, learning that the baby is a girl, the father-in-law ignores Maloti’s plea for help, which results in her needing to be rushed to another hospital. In the film’s tragic climax, Maloti finds herself trapped once more in Dhaka’s traffic. The story comes full circle as she dies, similarly to Polash, amidst the urban frenzy. Never does Barkat Hossain Polash’s handheld cinematography perform as urgently and incisively as in this finale.
Dear Maloti is bound not only to leave audience’s heartbroken, but also to spark critical conversations about Bangladesh’s contemporary state of affairs. In the wake of the nation’s recent political turmoil, Dasgupta’s bold reflections on gender inequality, bureaucracy, and class disparities are more timely than ever. At the DIFF’s award ceremony, Dear Maloti‘s Best Feature award was met with the loudest ovation at the festival. This much-deserved positive reception, is ultimately as much a testament to the film’s quality as it is a poignant reminder of cinema’s unique capacity to represent, and to provoke, and inspire.
Matthew Tan
Edited by Ela Bittencourt
© FIPRESCI 2025