Mayasabha Is A Fascinating Film Engulfed By Its Own Excess
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Rahi Anil Barve's sophomore outing is a startlingly original film with its own language and worldbuilding, where greed is placed at the centre — both as a site of seduction and the reason for undoing, writes Ishita Sengupta.
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IN A FAIR WORLD, someone who made Tumbbad, a fantastical film on greed, wouldn’t have to wait nearly a decade to make his next feature. In a fair world, the filmmaker wouldn’t have several projects on the back burner, battling uncertain fate. But such a world doesn’t exist, and Rahi Anil Barve is not just aware of this; he is subjected to it and through his films, he has made an art out of it. His sophomore film is posited in a similar universe of avarice. There are more similarities. Like Tumbbad, Mayasabha: The Hall of Illusion is a startlingly original film with its own language and worldbuilding, and like the 2018 outing, greed is placed at the centre both as a site of seduction and the reason for undoing. Barve also uses the emotion as a scalpel to instigate the human heart and reveal it. The result is a fascinating film that becomes increasingly indulgent across its runtime but offers enough merit to signal that most of it is earned. Stream the latest films and shows with OTTplay's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. |
Mayasabha is set in a rundown theatre. The owner is a man called Parmeshwar Kumar (a triumphant Jaaved Jaaferi), a gas-mask-wearing, temperamental man living in the present but held hostage by the past. Once upon a time, he was a successful film producer, but today he languishes in memory. The eeriness of the space makes it only easier. Parmeshwar lives in a labyrinthine movie theatre that is shrouded in cobwebs and memories. Years ago, his wife, also an actress, had left him for someone else, and since then, he imprisoned himself and dunked himself in self-pity. ALSO READ | Is Boogie Woogie 2 on the cards? Jaaved Jaaferi reveals The other occupant is Vasu (a terrific Mohammad Samad), his young son who, unlike his father, is aware of a world outside but is equally fearful. He wears a helmet indoors, which starts to make sense when Parmeshwar throws violent fits of anger, only to hug his son the next minute. When Vasu invites two of his friends, the lulled momentum of the place shifts. |
Mayilaa: Semmalar Annam's Debut Feature Intertwines Work, Faith & Fury
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Premiered at IFFR 2026, Mayilaa blends humour, ritual and neo-realist detail into a sharp portrait of a mother and daughter navigating loss, labour and dignity. Aditya Shrikrishna writes.
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IF YOU POSSESS above average knowledge of contemporary Tamil cinema, Semmalar Annam might be familiar. Maybe you cannot place the name, but you will recall the face, a face unfortunately stereotyped by Tamil filmmakers. She is an actor with such ferocious presence that if you give her half a decent role, she will single-handedly lift a film. Films like Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy and Jaikumar Sedhuraman’s Sennai are a testament to this talent, but my favourite Semmalar performance came in a short film, Arikarasudhan’s Ullangai Nellikkani , an adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The Woman Who Came at Six o'clock. She has also directed short films, and now her debut directorial feature, Mayilaa, premieres at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week in the Bright Future section. The 97-minute feature, produced by Newton Cinema and presented by Pa. Ranjith, is quite indicative of the promises in this section full of debutantes. Written by Semmalar Annam and shot by Vinoth Janakiraman (editing by Sreekar Prasad), Mayilaa progresses like a part-humorous, part-dramatic parable, one where past trauma manifests as spiritual possessions and even anger and outrage filter through trance. We meet Mayilaa (Melodi Dorcas) and her daughter Sudar (Shudarkodi Vinesh) as they attend a ritual at dawn. The goddess of worship is our protagonist’s namesake, possibly named because of her penchant to dive into a trance at the drop of a single religious ululation. The womenfolk try to calm Mayilaa while the kids discuss ghost stories and how their mothers’ trance scares them, one of them noting that when it comes to terror, her father trumps all. Mayilaa’s savings are wiped out by her wastrel husband (Semmalar restricts us from witnessing his full physical form; he exists in tiny specks of movements), and the land where she works as a labourer picking metal waste is sold off, leaving her in search of a new livelihood. That’s when her entrepreneurial spirit sparks, and she decides to sell straw mats. Amidst all this, Sudar is constipated. ALSO FROM THE AUTHOR | Angammal: Geetha Kailasam Shines In A Lived-In Tale Of Tradition & Change |
Semmalar fills her frames with women, all of them working class and all of them in their elements when together. Even the little shrine has a priestess performing the sacred duties, no man in sight. We meet a truckload of women singing in jubilation as they travel to work, only to practise dead silence when a man gets on. These are moments where Mayilaa gets a neo-realist treatment, the supporting arcs and stray characters enjoy a moment of their own, unburdened by the principal character’s predicaments. A group of women sing in unison or playfully at each other as they work the land; we only find out later that they are Mayilaa’s colleagues. As Mayilaa embarks on the road to sell mats, she meets another of her kind, a young woman selling books for children, and after a brief tussle in trying to attract customers, the two women bond over their shared struggles in the heat. |
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