To truly explore a city, to best get its feel, to gain familiarity with its people, set on foot about it.
M.F. Hussain takes you on many myriad walks through select cities, photographing three of them - one rustic, another colorful, the third elegant- in the process presenting a Travelogue on Celluloid that captures the architecture, the crafts, the markets, the villages, the religious sites, the accents and cultures indigenous to each.
The visual extravaganza of Meenaxi - A Tale of Three Cities tantalizes. Vignettes and settings specific to each city are a treat to watch - the intricately carved jharokhas and chajjaas of palaces in Jaisalmer, the imposing Charminar of Hyderabad, and its many festivals, the cobblestone streets and lively vistas and cafes of Prague.
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Meenaxi - A Tale of Three Cities interestingly depicts how a writer uses his liberty to consider a character from one live setting and give him/her some traits that markedly contrast the real person and place him/her with in another fictional setting, to create his piece of fiction. Questions on whether it is easier to write about a live character or rather easier to write about a totally fictionalized character arise.
Traversing between the Novelist's beautiful, imaginative world and settings, where the muse is given serene, playful and endearing qualities, frequently traveling back to the real humdrum dark world where the muse is a paan-chewing, meddlesome chatterbox, at times even spiteful and scathing, Meenaxi interestingly and frequently cuts from the languid environs of Jaiselmer in fiction, to the hustle bustle of Hyderabad in reality.
The Novelist progresses his story in bits, irritatingly interrupted by a Hyderabadi ittarwali (perfume seller) who pries into his work at every opportunity. Her claustrophobic interferences make the writer want to escape into a fresh and free setting, so he shifts it to Prague.
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Meenaxi a loudmouth, headstrong, perfume seller of Hyderabad comes barging in and conveniently plonks herself into the humdrum life of Nawab, a lonely, eccentric novelist experiencing a dearth of saleable story ideas, currently under the subtle threats of his publisher and his gun.
As she demands he write a story on her, Nawab adopts her as a muse, but builds her character as the daughter of an aristrocrat in Jaisalmer, who busies herself in a ‘Save Water’ campaign.
For her love interest Nawab picks from Hyderabad, Kunal, a rowdy, boozard, car mechanic, nursing dreams of being a singer, and given to frequenting Hyderabadi brothels. But Nawab instead pens him in stark contrast as Kaameshwar, a soft-spoken, well-bred, aristocrat who falls in love with Meenaxi in Jaislemer.
The intrusive ittarwali does not like a sudden twist Nawab gives to the tale, and destroys his work. A shattered Nawab attempts to begin the story anew in a fresh situation (Prague) with the ittarwali as a new character Maria a childish, timid, waitress/actress, with Kaameshwar again wooing her. Again, Nawab fails to culminate it to its completion.
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Life goes ahead much faster than a writer can try to capture it on paper, characters in reality never waiting for the writer to keep pace with them.
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Sequences and episodes that occur in Meenaxi can be interpreted variously. The characters aren't fully explained, their background are only fleetingly touched upon, thus their motives and actions can be analyzed in vibrantly different ways.
Comparisons with Gajagamini are unavoidable & Meenaxi compares much more favorably. Unlike his earlier full length feature film, Gajagamini that was too abstruse and wholly confined to a studio, focused on the lead actress’ posterior, in Meenaxi Hussain takes his viewers to picturesque outdoors treating them to brilliant glimpses of his chosen cities, with a suitably interesting plot as well. When measured with Gajagamini, Meenaxi is also much more coherent a movie, much less self-indulgent and a wee bit more more commercially inclined.
Santosh Sivan’s cinematography and Sharmistha Roy’s art direction elevate the pleasure in viewing Meenaxi. Though this certainly isn’t AR Rahman at his best, the music does suit the movie, at times raunchy ‘Chinnama Chilkamma’, to the mellow and stunningly shot ‘Yeh rishta kya kehlaata hai’
The performances are all uniformly triumphant. As the observant, timid, absent minded and oppressed Nawab, Raghuveer Yadav gives a wonderfully layered act. The movie showcases Tabbu’s talent in three starkly different roles, one rackety, another aristocratic and the third elf-like, she also has never looked this stunning. Debutante Kunnal Kapoor is poised and confident in both his avatars.
Inevitably, Meenaxi will and already has tumbled at the box office, but for anyone who likes radically creative cinema, it is a collector's DVD.
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