Waited …waited and waited ….for watching the much hyped Malayalam movie ‘Anantabhadram’ directed by ace cinematographer Santosh Sivan. Sadly it is well below expectations. The brilliant cinematography, music and the best ever art direction …all lost to a week script and a “painkili” story. The whole movie is chaos. The orchestra, screaming women, roaring villain …oh god it was torture to the end.
“Anantabhadram”
Language : Malayalam
Director : Santosh Sivan
Script : Sunil Parameswaran
Music : M.G. Radhakrishnan
Art : Sunil
Cast : Prithviraj, Kavya Madhavan, Manoj K. Jayan, Kalabhavan Mani, Riya Sen, Nedumudi Venu, Biju Menon , Lakshmi Krishnamurti etc.
Story
Anantan (Prithviraj) comes to his homeland in Kerala to fulfill his mother’s last wish to light lamps in the “Sivakkaav” (an ancient temple inside the farm). But the place is captured by the wicked black magician Digambaran (Manoj K. Jayan) who wants to destroy Anantan’s family in revenge of his grand father’s murder by Anantan’s ancestor. Anantan encounters many dangers from the moment he steps into “Sivakkaav”. Later he meets Bhadra (Kavya Madhavan) a relative, and falls in love with her. Digambaran wants to steal the Ruby ‘Naagamanikyam’ from the ancient ‘Mantrikappura’ (The Magic House) built near the waterfalls. Holy snakes protect the supernatural ruby “Nagamanikyam”. Digambaran uses Bhaama (Riya Sen) , the beautiful sister of Chempan (Kalabhavan Mani) for his wicked practices. Chempan is a martial arts guru. Now Anantan , Chempan and Bhadra have to stop Digambaran from capturing the ruby.
Digambaran tries many forms of black magic like ‘Sava pooja’(worshipping deadbodies) and ‘Parakaaya pravesham’(transmigration) and finally conquers Anantan’s mind. Towards the end, the film becomes a screechy pandemonium with swordfights, graphics and dialogues, inside the caves of “Mantrikappura” and ends with an anti-climax.
The pluses
The art direction is the highlight of the film. Especially the whole new idea to fuse a natural wonder like the “Atirappilly” waterfalls with an artificial cave to make the Maantrikappura. The amazing visual adaptation of Ravi Varma’s masterpiece portraits in the song “pinakkamaano” is worth watching. The cinematography is breathtaking. The other positive things are the music by M G Radhakrishnan and the visual graphics and fights. Santosh Sivan has done a great job in creating the Gothic atmosphere by using only the traditional cultural symbols of Kerala.
Acting department
Unlike the media said, I would say that the best performance in the film is by Prithviraj! .I think no other youngster in Malayalam cinema at present matches his acting skills.
His matured, natural and subtle acting is sidelined by the much talked about performances by Manoj , Mani and Kavya. But to be frank, Kavya is really overacting. Her “Mohiniyattam-ized”expressions are irritating. But poor Santosh Sivan couldn’t get another girl having a traditional Malayali face! Manoj K. Jayan and Kalabhavan Mani have done their roles brilliantly.
the minuses
1.) The idea to make such a classy movie out of a pulp fiction novel published from Kottayam.
2.) The script by the novelist Sunil Parameswaran is far below the standards. Many of the dialogues are very much “painkili” that suite only for the cheap Kottayam magazines.
3.) A long novel is compressed into a 140 minutes’ film …and the ambiguity associated.
4.) The big, unbearable noisy BGM for each scene.
So………..
if you go for it……let it be only for watching the sets, camerawork and the starcast.