Mahamaya: A Quiet Trip Into Old-School Cinema

Is it worth your time?

If you're the kind of person who likes Aria di paese or enjoys the slow, deliberate rhythm of old black-and-white pictures, you'll probably get a kick out of this. It’s not for everyone. If you’re bored by stuff that doesn’t move at breakneck speed, just skip it. Seriously, don't bother.

Watching Ghulam Mohammed try to navigate these scenes is a trip. Sometimes he looks like he’s lost, and other times he’s the only person in the room who knows what's going on. It’s charmingly messy.

Odd little details

• The lighting in the second act is so dim I thought my screen broke.
• There’s a moment with a chair that lasts way too long. Why did they leave that in?
• Syed Ahmed has this habit of blinking during intense dialogue that makes me laugh every time.

It reminds me a bit of the vibe in Prix de beauté (Miss Europe), just without the polish. It’s got that same “we’re making this up as we go” energy that I usually find endearing. You can almost see the gears turning behind the actors' eyes.

There is a scene near the middle where everything just goes quiet. No music. No big dramatic reveal. Just people looking at each other. I kind of loved it. Most movies today are so scared of silence, but here it just sits there, heavy and weird.

Is it a masterpiece? Hardly. But it’s got a pulse, which is more than I can say for a lot of the stuff coming out lately. It feels like an artifact. You watch it and you think, 'Yeah, someone actually held a camera and made this happen.' 🎥

Don't expect it to explain everything. It won't. It just drops you in, leaves you there for a bit, and then cuts to black when it feels like it’s done. Kind of refreshing, in a weird way.