The fact that it is the second film from the director of Tumbbad was the obvious thing that generated excitement around this new movie, Mayasabha. Directed by Rahi Anil Barve, Mayasabha possesses the quality we see in some of the great short films, where they don’t delve into the backstories, but instead dive into the details of the unvisualized elaborately. Set against the backdrop of an abandoned old movie theater, Mayasabha is one more story that deals with the idea of greed, and the end result is a psychological drama that has its moments discreetly.
Parmeshawar Khanna is a yesteryear film producer who is no longer in the limelight and lives a hidden life with his son Vasu. Vasu, at one point, became friends with these two people named Zeenat and Ravarana. Vasu lets them know about the gold Khanna possesses, and Zeenat and Ravarana, with Vasu’s consent, decide to find out where Khanna has kept that wealth. The truths that unravel when they meet Khanna over a small party held by Vasu inside the theater are what we see in Mayasabha.
Rahi Anil Barve skips through the friendship story of Vasu, Ravarana, and Zeenat through a montage song sequence and enters the theater at the earliest. There are no major mysteries about Zeenat and her companion as we are exploring the whole thing from their perspective, who are also understanding the theater and these characters just like us. The movie becomes interesting after Zeenat cracks the secret. Zeenat actually digs deep into the personal life of Parmeshwar Khanna for her own benefit, but those portions that give us a full explanation on why this character was so erratic are, in my opinion, the best bits in the movie, and we are pulled in to know more.
The writing uses two layers of mystery in the screenplay. The first one is the most obvious, where one set of characters is trying to find the secret treasure. But the hunt for the gold leads to another unraveling of the mystery around this producer character. We get a different picture from the public perception of what happened to Khanna and why he went bankrupt. The intention of Rahil Anil Barve is to create the same euphoria for both tracks. While the track that explores the reality of Khanna manages to create an impact, the slightly superficial treatment of the gold hunt did not land smoothly. Since the subject matter is greed, secrets, etc., the setting of the story is lit theatrically, and that subconsiously adds a layer of mystery to almost every character.
Jaaved Jaaferi plays the part of Parmeshwar Khanna, who is unstable and carries a lot of secrets within. From being abusive to reading people and showing the vulnerable side of the character, Jaaved Jaaferi presents the abnormality of Khanna in a grounded way. Mohammad Samad, whom we have seen in Tumbbad as Pandurang, plays the role of the overenthusiastic Vasu, and he carries the innocence of the character neatly on screen. Veena Jamkar as Zeenat gets the most integral character in this drama, as she is the instigator. She performs the cunningness of that character with a lot of conviction. Deepak Damle as Ravarana is, in a way, the source of humor in this intense drama.
Mayasabha is a movie that is set in a single location and happens over the course of a day. However, it manages to become a life story of multiple characters within that span of time. The bits that thrillingly discover these characters are what make the movie compelling. If they could have generated the same intrigue in the second layer of the story, which features the other two characters, by adding some deeper layers, the movie would have succeeded in generating that cinematic hangover.
