Rahi Anil Barve’s Mayasabhaopens with two distinct images. First, a man: Parmeshwar (Jaaved Jaafery), hair grown wild and unattended, fills a cramped room with smoke. What initially reads as rage slowly reveals itself as something more fragile. It’s as if he is not shouting but breaking. It’s as if the sound is grief stripped of language. His body gives way, collapsing under a weight we sense has been carried for far too long. Blood gathers at his mouth, his eyes flicker, heavy with exhaustion, and then eventually closes. It feels less like death than a moment of unbearable rest, the body finally refusing to hold what the mind no longer can. And then morning arrives. A single shaft of sunlight touches the face of a child, Vasu (Mohammad Samad). He opens his eyes and draws in a deep breath, slow and full, like someone entering a new world. There is a sense of beginning here, almost of birth. He stretches as he stands. Behind him looms a giant movie screen; before him stands a dilapidated single-screen theatre. The title card appears: Mayasabha. In these opening minutes, Barve very much lays out his central thesis. Cinema is both the vault where trauma is locked away and the key that might one day open it.
Yes, very much like Tumbbad, (Barve’s debut), this is an atmospheric thriller populated by figures that feel less like people and more like myths. Yes, very much like Tumbbad, it circles the idea of all-consuming greed. Yes, very much like Tumbbad, it places a father and a son at its center. But it is also something else, as deception is its principal language. It’s as if the smoke that fills the frame is the fog that dominates the lives of the characters. The subtext very much lies in the eyes of the beholder. Greed functions only as an entry point into a narrative that is, at its heart, actually about trust. The love-hate father–son dynamic becomes a gateway into a film concerned with intergenerational trauma. The decaying cinema hall becomes an allegory for a dying devotion to storytelling. The presence of Parmeshwar (his name translating to God) a once big-shot producer trapped in the past, is actually hinting at a man living in delusion. His son, Vasu (another name for Karna) enduring cruelty in the name of care, mistaking survival for choice, searching for an escape he cannot yet name. After all, legacy pretends to be love.
Rahil Anil Barve’s Mayasabha might haunt with mythology, but the only religion of the world is materialism, and the only devotion is to wealth.
Everything here is illusory. Starting from the film’s full title, Mayasabha: The Hall of Illusion, which connects back to the Mahabharata, to that legendary palace built for the Pandavas, a space so deceptively constructed that Duryodhana’s humiliation within it went unseen until it had already taken root, eventually becoming one of the forces that led to the Kurukshetra war. Of course, in the film, the single-screen theatre performs a similar function. It becomes the site of a conflict of its own, where façades collapse, where smoke begins to clear. At the center of this reckoning stands the creator of this universe, Parmeshwar, revealed not as an all-powerful figure but actually as a man fractured by his own uncertainty. His rage and violence function as compensations, sort of tools to manufacture a sense of masculinity he cannot otherwise access. This somewhere too ties to another moment from the epic: where Arjuna, forced into disguise as Brihannala.
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If the Mahabharata haunts the soul of the film, the Ramayana does not stay away. One character is named Ravana (Deepak Damle), whose sister’s repeated advances are refused by God (Parmeshwar), and a war of its own kind takes shape. Barve moves through mythology not to crown his characters as gods or demons, but to show them as people pretending to be both. The most intriguing aspect of his world is that mythology might hover over it, yet the only religion is materialism, the only devotion is to wealth. And the currency of this world is storytelling: the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others, and the question of which carries more lies. Cinema, indeed, is the art of lying truthfully, and Barve, alongside Parmeshwar, performs this effortlessly. They lay the gold before us, bare and unhidden. It waits. It waits on that huge, giant screen.
Anas Arif is a prolific Entertainment Journalist and Cinematic Analyst at The Indian Express, where he specializes in the intersection of Indian pop culture, auteur-driven cinema, and industrial ethics. His writing is defined by a deep-seated commitment to documenting the evolving landscape of Indian entertainment through the lens of critical theory and narrative authorship.
Experience & Career
As a core member of The Indian Express entertainment vertical, Anas has cultivated a unique beat that prioritizes the "craft behind the celebrity." He has interviewed a vast spectrum of industry veterans, from blockbuster directors like Vijay Krishna Acharya, Sujoy Ghosh, Maneesh Sharma to experimental filmmakers and screenwriters like Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Varun Grover, Rajat Kapoor amongst several others. His career is characterized by a "Journalism of Courage" approach, where he frequently tackles the ethical implications of mainstream cinema and the socio-political subtext within popular media. He is also the host of the YouTube series Cult Comebacks, where he talks to filmmakers about movies that may not have succeeded initially but have, over time, gained a cult following. The show aims to explore films as works of art, rather than merely commercial ventures designed to earn box office revenue.
Expertise & Focus Areas
Anas's expertise lies in his ability to deconstruct cinematic works beyond surface-level reviews. His focus areas include:
Auteur Studies: Detailed retrospectives and analyses of filmmakers such as Imtiaz Ali, Anurag Kashyap, and Neeraj Ghaywan, often exploring their central philosophies and creative evolutions.
Cinematic Deconstruction: Examining technical and narrative choices, such as the use of aspect ratios in independent films (Sabar Bonda) or the structural rhythm of iconic soundtracks (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge).
Industrial & Social Ethics: Fearless critique of commercial blockbusters, particularly regarding the promotion of bigoted visions or the marginalization of communities in mainstream scripts.
Exclusive Long-form Interviews: Conducting high-level dialogues with actors and creators to uncover archival anecdotes and future-looking industry insights.
Authoritativeness & Trust
Anas Arif has established himself as a trusted voice by consistently moving away from standard PR-driven journalism. Whether he is interrogating the "mythology of Shah Rukh Khan" in modern sequels or providing a space for independent filmmakers to discuss the "arithmetic of karma," his work is rooted in objectivity and extensive research. Readers look to Anas for an educated viewpoint that treats entertainment not just as a commodity, but as a critical reflection of the country's collective conscience. ... Read More
Rahil Anil Barve’s Mayasabha might haunt with mythology, but the only religion of the world is materialism, and the only devotion is to wealth.
