Released Date : 3.5/5
Avg. User's Rating : 8 Jul, 2023
Countless filmmakers have adapted Macbeth for the big screen, including Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, Roman Polanski's Macbeth, Vishal Bharadwaj's Maqbool, and Anirban Bhattacharya's web series Mandar. Maya is another reimagining of Shakespeare's classic and tries to create an ending that is more revenge-focused rather than power-focused.
The story begins with a scene of shock and violence, where a young rape victim becomes pregnant, abandons her child and becomes a spiritualist, Maya (Rafiath Rashid Mithila). She becomes a powerful female leader of a minority group, to whom people turn for sanctuary.
The audience is then introduced to Durbar Sharma (Kamaleshwar Mukherjee), a powerful criminal who keeps an eye on women, including his current mistress Mrinalini (Tanushree Chakraborty), his daughter-in-law Reshmi (Sudipta Chakraborty) and his former mistress Parmita. (Konenika Banerjee). His circle also includes his son Mayank (Rahul Banerjee) and his trusted henchman Michael (Gaurav Chakraborty), a gangster with a shady past. The next 1.5 hours are spent introducing several characters and establishing the main plot and subplots.
Although the story is based on Macbeth, it focuses too much on titular details and deliberate deviations that somehow detract from the play. The director takes too long to establish the wickedness of the court. Most of the dialogues are in Hindi, with Bengali accents often turning a serious scene or dialogue into something unintentionally humorous. Kamleswar is convincingly cunning, but his role is initially one-dimensional even as the director goes about establishing his rule. On the other hand, Gaurav's Michael is practically not given enough backstory for the audience to connect with his situation like the other characters. Tanushree's Mrinalini (perhaps Lady Macbeth) works in some parts, especially where she struggles to gain power and position.
Rafiath, on the other hand, as Maya, should have been able to do more justice to her role, but she rarely goes beyond dreadlocks and kohl-lined eyes. His dialogue delivery - a combination of Hindi and Bengali that sounds rehearsed at times - leaves a lot of room for clarity and intensity. Sudeepta, the sassy Mahi, Konenika as Parmita and Rahul as Mayank have a good chemistry and their sub-plots keep the story moving even when the main plot fails.
While a large number of cameos spoil the broth, the dialogues feel very stilted and contemporary, with a lot of banter thrown in, perhaps to make it sound more 'normal'?
The film clocks around the three-hour mark, with a slower first half and a faster second, and is on par with another Bengali director's star-studded Shakespearean adaptation. Maybe that's why the dialogues as well as the scenes feel out of place. Moreover, the editing is very slow in places, sharp in others and it constantly and uncomfortably changes the pace of the film. Overall, Maya does not have much influence beyond the body politic. The director's consistent focus on heightening the revenge element does not produce the 'calm of mind, all emotion spent' ending that a Macbeth adaptation deserves.
