Utterly original, the fable-like film — about greed, hatred and moral decline — is anchored by Jaaved Jaaferi and Mohammad Samad’s performances. What troubles though is the incomplete and inconsistent storytelling
There’s a peculiar fascination that filmmaker Rahi Anil Barve finds in the depths, both literal and figurative. In Tumbbad (2018), his debut film, the protagonist learns of a treasure hidden in the womb of a Goddess, and every time greed strikes, he descends into her innards with the help of a rope. A monster awaits him with the said treasure on its person, but the man’s guile is so bent that he can even deceive a beast at will. Through a story that spans generations, a strange fable is told, and its audacious vision has now come to have a legacy of its own; Tumbbad is that gothic grandmother’s tale that cineastes across India now whisper to one another.
Barve, though, isn’t done yet with his allegorical style of storytelling. His sophomore film, Mayasabha: The Hall of Illusion affirms his idea of fantasy that is simple in its accessibility, yet deeply layered and ambitious in terms of physicality. An old woman had a tree growing out of her body in Tumbbad. The womb of the Goddess was ornate with a deceiving sense of piety. Monuments and shrines stood on top of slush and decay, and human life was visibly reduced to an ugly quest for materiality. The motifs and the mythic-rich world return in Mayasabha albeit in a far more urban form, as a rancid movie theatre in modern-day Mumbai becomes the stage for a play of greed, hatred and moral decline. Barve’s vision, too, is as uncompromising as before, and his people are alluring as expected. It is the intrigue, however, that he almost completely misses out on.
Enigma, illusion and magic
The film, therefore, is akin to a haunting photo essay that tells a far more compelling story through its many vignettes. Its world-building is of the quality of a grand relic, whose every sight is painstakingly made to carry memories of both pleasure and dread. A chandelier flickers a few too many times before turning its old glory on. A Rolls-Royce dies a slow, rusting death in another place. The palatial staircase, which is excessive and misfitting for a movie theatre, is now strewn with the filth and garbage of the entire world. A bathroom so nastily grimy and gross that going in to puke would only make you puke a few more times.
A king, named Parmeshwar Khanna (Jaaved Jaaferi), wanders about in his strange appearance, operating a DDT or mosquito-killing smoke gun, and waits for the crumbling to complete its course. His unattended and terribly gullible son, Vasushen (Mohammad Samad), still treats it dearly as his home, knowing nothing of the outside world. Two strangers named Zeenat (Veena Jamkar) and Ravana (Deepak Damle), a brother-sister duo posing as the boy’s friends, walk in to steal the treasure that the king has buried somewhere. Each detail of Mayasabha is a snapshot steeped in enigma, and if you put the half-done drama aside for a moment, there is illusion and the magic available at every turn of the head.
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Even the film’s story is folk-tale-like. Parmeshwar Khanna is a once-famous film producer who made films like ‘Bharatmata’ and ‘Saap Rani’ along with the very popular pairing of Jaymala and Sohrab. Jaymala was also Parmeshwar’s wife and they were perhaps the ideal tinseltown couple in the eyes of the public, but the reality was far from being that rosy; Jaymala, as reported by tabloids, was actually in love with her onscreen partner Sohrab, and when the secret is leaked, it is Parmeshwar who gets caught in the flames by being termed an impotent and a cuckold (with Zeenat hilariously mistaking it for ‘Kakkad’). The producer, a la Guru Dutt, is burnt and ravaged, and left a loitering soul, but there arrives the question of what and how much he is hiding, and what he is willing to let go of to hold on to his own secrets.
For Barve, just as in Tumbbad, the essence lies not only in what’s buried, but also what is at the fore. The father-son dynamic is explored yet again with a unique perspective, which becomes the undercurrent to Zeenat and Ravrana’s heist in focus. The writing shows flashes of ingenuity in moments, like in the explanations for Vasu’s odd preference to wear a helmet indoors and Parmeshwar’s breakdown at the sound of a mosquito’s buzz. Another refreshing bit is the absence of flashbacks or backstories, which particularly allows Zeenat and Ravrana to be creatures of mystique as well as whimsy; in fact, the same applies to Jaymala and Sohrab, whose faces are barely registered. Barve feels at home in his situation, but he is also faced with the challenge of navigating a rich storyline and building mystery through a small set of characters and a singular location. And it is here that he relents.
An experience worth cherishing
Despite the magnificence of the setting, Mayasabha restricts itself to dialogues and doesn’t take long to assume a stage-like cadence about the way it unfolds. The talk-heavy tone then slowly starts to not only dilute the potency of the narrative but also prematurely give away tidbits that ought to be picked up by us along the way. The refusal of conventional plotting is invigorating, but a fulcrum nevertheless feels missing in the writing: Is this a seriocomic tale of a mad king's distrustful memory? Is this about the dimwitted prince coming of age? Is this about the ruins of a palace regurgitating answers that nobody expected? It’s a bit of all that, in a way, and there is a certain ache and misery about this world. At the same time, you sense that Rahi Anil Barve was somehow not able to imbue the right kind of storytelling into its physical textures. Sagar Desai’s background score, too, is noteworthy, but the work it does only raises our expectations that the film cannot meet.
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Mayasabha is an incredibly rare exercise for Indian cinema, especially in today’s times, when film literacy is evaporating pretty fast. The film is a phantasm, a bold plunge, and something like this is always going to be a little too indulgent as well. The problem, though, isn’t the indulgence, but the lack of clarity. The filmmaker has often spoken about requiring ample artistic freedom to put his stories out there, and despite all his stellar efforts, his latest has received a meek release in cinemas. Within the film, too, one spots a few holes in the execution — a pivotal scene is unevenly edited because of a possible lack of sufficient footage, and another portion in the second half doesn’t match the pre-set visual standards.
Yet, despite the many gaps, this is an experience worth cherishing for myriad reasons. Jaaved Jaaferi’s acting prowess has always been a delicious promise, but rarely has his talent received the right platform; here, he certainly does, and he puts on a mighty fine show. Mohammad Samad, who has hardly fared poorly as an actor before, is charming and effective as ever as Vasu. Cinematographer Kuldeep Mamanai and production designer Preetam Rai’s synergy lifts the aesthetic bar to a whole new level, while Rahi Anil Barve himself pours his heart into a story that, although it misses its mark, is still sure to linger for a long time.
