Ananthabhadram

Watched the new Malayalam film Ananthabhadram today at Sangeeth theatre. This is the first Malayalam film of director Santhosh Shivan, and in an interview with him, he told that his intentions was to make a film "highlighting our rich culture and traditions", that will make us feel as if we were "going to a story that our grandparents told us when we were young". He doesn’t want to call it a horror film; "It’s about black magic that exists even today", he says. The film is based on a story by Sunil Parameswaran, and is photographed by the director himself.

Santhosh Shivan has succeeded in creating the imagery of a grandma's tale. The old tharavadu, complete with nalukettu, ponds, kavu and lush green surroundings, forests, mysterious caves beside the waterfall - all are picturized well by the director. Chenda has been used extensively in the background music, reminding of Kathakali songs, and it provides an excellent support for the visuals. Manoj K Jayan gives an inspired performance as Digambaran, the black magician, for which his physique might have helped a lot. I cant think of any other Malayalam actor playing that role. Kalabhavan Mani as Chemban also gives a good performance.

However, the director disappoints us frequently, starting from the very first scene which shows a flashback of Gayatri (Revathi) telling her old stories to her son Ananthan. Even though this is a very short sequence used as a backdrop for title scenes, the artificiality of Revathi's narration irritated me a lot. Then there are the scenes of Ananthan's (Prithviraj) homecoming, and his meetings with relatives and villagers. It is now Prithviraj's turn to irritate us by talking to the illiterate villagers in English, and it looked like the director or actor (or both) were confused whether he should play a comic role or a serious one. Characters like Maravi Mathayi (Cochin Haneefa) further dilute the atmosphere, and it is only towards the end of the first half that Prithviraj's character settles a bit. Kavya Madhavan tries to repeat the role that she had played in Meesha Madhavan; But she does a good job. The film tightens after the interval through few nicely edited sequences, but disappoints in the climax.

A scene from Ananthabhadram (Courtesy www dot anandabhadram dot com).

There are five songs in the film. The "pinakkamano" song is picturized beautifully, showing Kavya posing as women in various Ravi Varma paintings. I only wished that she hadn’t become so plump and looked like a minukku character from Kathakali. The song "malamallalooya" is sung by Kalabhavan Mani and is good to hear. But my favorite song was "thira nurayum", sung by Yesudas.

Ananthabhadram is worth watching for its brilliant visuals and music. However, I don’t think it meets the expectations raised by the director.