“A meditation on urban loneliness and intimate estrangement, told through the evolving relationship between two women.”

“Stories that follow people into their private rooms are difficult.
I cannot go on with this story.”
Virginia Woolf, The Waves

In many ways, Anuparna Roy’s Songs of Forgotten Trees is a film about exactly that: what happens behind closed doors. It’s about stories half-heard from the other side of the wall, about the slippery boundary between observation and intrusion, and about how easily curiosity and desire can lead us into spaces not meant for us. These are the kinds of stories that demand discretion, or perhaps even silence. And yet, longing is unbearable. We peek into the lives of others, trying to fill the gaps with our own narratives.

At its core, Songs of Forgotten Trees is a meditation on urban loneliness and intimate estrangement, told through the evolving relationship between two women: Thooya, an aspiring actress struggling to find her place in Mumbai, and Swetha, a quiet corporate worker who sublets a room where Thooya lives. Their initial indifference gradually softens into a fragile connection, complicated by desire, secrecy, and longing.

Roy’s Mumbai is one of emotional dislocation, and the film perfectly captures this paradox of proximity without connection: people living together without truly knowing one another, like co-workers who spend years side by side without forming bonds, or strangers sharing identical daily routines yet remaining entirely unknown to one another. This urban alienation is rendered with remarkable subtlety. Despite the film’s brief 77-minute runtime, Roy employs a deliberately slow, observational rhythm that allows the nuances of this emotional terrain to emerge with clarity. The domestic space, their apartment, becomes the film’s primary setting and metaphor. Roy often frames her characters through doorways, hallways, or partially obscured by household objects, visually reinforcing the barriers that exist between them. We become voyeurs, peering into their lives just as they tentatively begin to look into each other’s.

Thooya, who dreams of becoming an actress, earns her living by embodying the fantasies of male clients. As she remarks, they call her names they would never use with their wives, like “darling,” or even “whore.” Meanwhile, Swetha’s own personal life is vaguely told. She dates frequently, often meeting potential suitors, but there is a persistent absence of genuine connection or sexual intimacy. These omissions, and the characters’ inability or unwillingness to explain them, form the central tension of the film.

Despite their shared space, Thooya and Swetha rarely communicate openly. They eat meals at the same time but in separate rooms, gradually moving toward shared domestic routines. Yet even as their interactions increase, much remains unsaid. Theirs is a relationship marked by simultaneous revelation and concealment. Each woman seeks to understand the other, but always through a veil of uncertainty.

This intricate display of intimacy and distance is where Songs of Forgotten Trees finds its power. Roy compels the viewer to read between lines, to listen closely to silence, and to find meaning in the gestures that go unacknowledged. Thooya’s identity as an actress, albeit one whose artistic ambitions remain unrealized, serves as a thematic anchor. She performs roles both professionally and personally, rehearsing intimacy for clients and for Swetha alike. But in doing so, she reflects a broader existential condition: we are all, in some way, performing – constructing versions of ourselves for others and for ourselves, selectively revealing and withholding, as we go on with our lives.

The film ultimately resists resolution. As Thooya and Swetha’s emotional bond deepens, so too does the tension between what is shared and what remains hidden. Expectations give way to quiet disappointments. Desire persists, but fulfillment remains elusive. Roy does not offer catharsis; instead, she leaves us with a sense of emotional residue, unresolved, perhaps unresolvable. A lot has changed since they first met, and yet in some ways they are still strangers sharing the same apartment.

After all is said and done, Songs of Forgotten Trees is a remarkably restrained and quiet film. With sensitivity, Roy invites us to contemplate what it means to truly see another person, and how often we fail to do so, even in our most intimate relationships. It is a film about longing, distance, and the fragile, flickering moments of connection that we chase despite knowing they may never fully arrive.