Manichitrathazhu

Manichitrathazhu is a 1993 Indian Malayalam-language epic psychological horror film directed by Fazil, written by Madhu Muttam, and produced by Swargachitra Appachan. The film stars Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi and Shobana in addition to Nedumudi Venu, Innocent, Vinaya Prasad, K.P.A.C.Lalitha, Sridhar, K.B. Ganesh Kumar, Sudheesh, Thilakan and others in supporting roles. The story is inspired by a tragedy that happened in an Ezhava tharavad, the Alummoottil meda (an old traditional mansion), located at Muttom (near Haripad), belonging to a central Travancore Channar family, in the 19th century. The writer of the film, Madhu K Panicker or Madhu Muttam, is a member of the Alummoottil Tharavad.

Directors Sibi Malayil, Priyadarshan and Siddique–Lal served as the second-unit directors. The cinematography was by Venu, Anandakuttan and Sunny Joseph served as the second-unit cinematographers, the film was edited by T. R. Shekar. The original songs featured in the movie were composed by M. G. Radhakrishnan, while the original score was composed by Johnson. The film won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and Shobhana was awarded the National Film Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Ganga / Nagavalli.

The film dealt with an unusual theme which was not common in Indian cinema at the time. The film completed 300 days of run in many theatres. Manichitrathazhu was remade in four languages – in Kannada as Apthamitra which in turn was remade in Tamil as Chandramukhi (with some plot changes), in Bengali as Rajmohol and in Hindi as Bhool Bhulaiyaa – all being commercially successful. Geethaanjali, a spin-off directed by Priyadarshan and Mohanlal reprising the role of Dr. Sunny Joseph was made in 2013. Manichitrathazhu is considered by many critics as one of the best films ever made in Malayalam cinema and developed a cult following in the years after its release. It is often regarded as the best psychological thriller ever made in India.

Plot
Nakulan and his wife Ganga  are on a holiday in their Kerala village. His maternal uncle Thambi learns that Nakulan is planning to stay at the Madampalli mansion, his ancestral house, despite attempts from the locals to dissuade them. The couple moves in, and later a worried Thambi warns Ganga to keep away from certain corners of the house. Bhasura, Nakulan's maternal aunt and Thambi's sister, reveals the reason why everyone fears the mansion. Around 150 years ago, the family's patriarch, a "Karanavar" named Sankaran Thambi travelled to Tanjore in Tamil Nadu, where he met and lusted after a danseuse named Nagavalli. However, she did not reciprocate his feelings as she was already in love with fellow dancer Ramanathan. As a result, Karanavar took her back to his palace by force. Unbeknownst to him, Nagavalli made arrangements for Ramanathan to stay in a house just outside the mansion and met him secretly. When Karanavar discovered this, he slayed Nagavalli and as a result, her bloodthirsty spirit started wreaking havoc in the village. The anxious Karanavar, with the help of priests and sorcerers from all over the state, tamed the spirit by locking it in a room located in the palace's south-west corner, which later came to be known as the Thekkini. The Karanavar too died by suicide in a few weeks' time. Back to the present, Alli, Bhasura's daughter and Nakulan's cousin, is in love with Mahadevan , a college lecturer and poet and their marriage is fixed. Mahadevan stays at the same house which was once Ramanathan's hideout.

After hearing Nagavalli's story, Ganga, who believes that it is all fabricated to keep thieves from entering the plush mansion, wishes to check it out. Ganga with the help of Alli gets a duplicate key to the Thekkini and successfully opens the door. Subsequently, strange things begin to happen in the household, like an apparition frightening the inmates at night, things inexplicably breaking, and Ganga's saree catching fire. Suspicion falls on Sridevi, also Nakulan's cousin who is Thambi's daughter, as she is known to have a troubled past featuring a broken marriage and also spends most of the time with Ganga. Nakulan immediately calls Dr. Sunny, his close friend and a renowned psychiatrist, to solve the case. As soon as Sunny comes, a mysterious being/person tries to kill Alli. Sunny also investigates other incidents such as attempts to harm Nakulan by poisoning his tea and a mysterious person singing and dancing almost every night inside Nagavalli's locked room.

Ganga mysteriously disappears during a Kathakali dance which is attended by the entire family. Sunny notices her absence and searches for her, only to find Ganga, who is supposedly being harassed by Mahadevan. Nakulan enters too and beats Mahadevan unaware of the fact that the latter is in fact innocent. Confidentially, Sunny reveals to Nakulan and Mahadevan that Ganga suffers from split personality disorder following an abandoned childhood and has further faced trauma after her parents forcibly took her away from her village and grandmother to whom she was emotionally attached. Sunny also reveals that Ganga's mind is attracted to folklore and fantasy, resulting in Ganga imagining herself in the brutally murdered Nagavalli's shoes. To worsen the situation, her mind pictures Mahadevan as Nagavalli's lover Ramanathan, as both men stay at the same house.

Sunny explains that the only way to cure Ganga is to make her believe that Nagavalli killed the evil Karanavar on Durgashtami, which is an impossible task as Ganga has started picturing her own husband Nakulan as the evil patriarch who severed Nagavalli. Sunny is in a dilemma as he is unable to save Ganga as well as Nakulan. Simultaneously, Thambi and family having lost faith in Sunny calls Pullattuparam Brahmadathan Namboodiri, a family friend and respected Tantric expert, to suggest a cure to the problems.

As fate has it, Namboodiri and Sunny are old friends with immense respect for each other's professional excellence. Despite Namboodiri initially brushing off Sunny's ideas to cure Ganga (while letting Nakulan stay intact) as impractical, he agrees to lend any help possible after realising Sunny's determination.

On Durgashtami eve, before carrying out his plan, Sunny asks Nakulan to trigger Ganga and see for himself. When Nakulan does so, she display's Nagavalli's anger, which shocks him. A worried Nakulan shouts at Ganga, stunning her back to normal. She falls unconscious and Nakulan lets her rest. But later that night, Sunny, Nakulan and Mahadevan witness Ganga transforming into Nagavalli, wearing the long dead danseuse's attire and dancing madly. Mahadevan, who is Ramanathan before Ganga's eyes, leads her to the rituals performed by Brahmadathan Namboodiri. The Namboodiri converses with Nagavalli and assures that she'll be able to behead the Karanavar and take her revenge. Nakulan is brought before "Nagavalli" and just before she attempts to slice him, Namboodiri sprays smoke before her and while she is distracted, Sunny turns the platform over, revealing a lifeless dummy in place of Nakulan. Nakulan gets out and escapes while Ganga slays the dummy, calming Nagavalli as she finally has her revenge. Ganga falls unconscious as Nagavalli leaves her and Sunny gently makes her aware that she is Ganga and just Ganga.

Nakulan and Ganga are all set to return to Kolkata while Sunny reveals to Sridevi that he likes her and wishes to marry her, and also asks Thambi for his blessing. He leaves along with the couple while Sridevi watches them through a window from upstairs.

Cast

 * Mohanlal as Dr. Sunny, the psychiatrist friend of Nakulan, from America, who solves Ganga's personality disorder
 * Suresh Gopi as Nakulan, Ganga's husband and The village chief in Ganga's hallucination of Nagavalli
 * Shobana as in a dual roles:
 * as Ganga Nakulan, a slightly modern lady from Kolkata who grows curious about the legends heard from Nakulan's ancestoral house, later develop's split personality disorder (voiceover by Bhagyalakshmi)
 * as Nagavalli, the dancer from the legends (voiceover by Durga)
 * Nedumudi Venu as Thampi, maternal uncle of Nakulan
 * Vinaya Prasad as Sreedevi, Thampi's elder daughter who was earlier to have been Nakulan's bride before his marriage to Ganga, Dr. Sunny's Love interest (voiceover by Anandavally)
 * Sridhar as Mahadevan, professor living next door to Alummoottil tharavadu and dancer Ramanathan in Ganga's hallucination
 * Rudra as Alli, daughter of Unnithan engaged to Mahadevan, (voiceover by Ambily)
 * Sudheesh as Chandhu, Thampi's son, Sridevi's younger brother
 * Innocent as Unnithan Nakulan's another maternal uncle
 * K. P. A. C. Lalitha as Bhasura, Nakulan's maternal aunt, wife of Unnithan
 * Thilakan as Pullattuparam Brahmadathan Namboothiripad, the sorcerer who locked Nagavally's spirit in Thekkini and later comes in helping solve Ganga's disorder
 * Kuthiravattam Pappu as Kattuparamban, native of Muttam
 * K. B. Ganesh Kumar as Dasappan Kutty helper of Unnithan
 * Vaijayanthi as Jayasree, Thampi's younger daughter
 * Kuttyedathi Vilasini as Thampi's wife

Filming
The haunting Thekkini was created inside the Vasan House in Chennai, the house of late S. S. Vasan, the founder of Gemini Studios. It was one of the film’s key locations apart from Padmanabhapuram Palace and Hill Palace. The major parts of the film were filmed at Hill Palace, Tripunithura and the climax was filmed at Padmanabhapuram Palace. The painting of Nagavalli was made by artist Shri R. Madhavan, drawn without a live model.

Dubbing credits
Shobana's voice was dubbed by two dubbing artistes—Bhagyalakshmi and Durga. Bhagyalakshmi dubbed her voice for Ganga, while Durga gave voice to the character's alter-ego, Nagavalli. Nagavalli's voice is heard only in the minor part of the film compared to Ganga's. Durga was not credited in the film or its publicity material and until 2016, the popular belief was that Bhagyalakshmi solely dubbed both voices.

In January 2016, in an article Ormapookkal published by Manorama Weekly, Fazil revealed that initially Bhagyalakshmi dubbed for both Ganga and Nagavalli, but during post-production, some of the crew, including editor Shekar, had a feeling that both voices sounded somewhat similar even though Bhagyalakshmi tried altering her voice for Nagavalli. Since Nagavalli's dialogue are in Tamil language, Fazil hired Tamil dubbing artist Durga for the part. But he forgot to inform it to Bhagyalakshmi, hence she was also unaware of it for a long time. Fazil did not credit Durga in the film; according to him, it was a difficult to make changes in the titles at that time, which was already prepared and her portion in the film was minor. The credits included only Bhagyalakshmi as the dubbing artiste for Shobana. Other dubbing artistes were Anandavally and Ambili, who dubbed for Vinaya Prasad and Rudra.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film was composed by M. G. Radhakrishnan which went on to become one of the most popular film albums in Malayalam. The album consists of nine tracks. The lyrics sung are in Malayalam and Tamil written by Bichu Thirumala and Madhu Muttam for Malayalam and Vaali for Tamil.

Release
Manichitrathazhu was released on 25 December 1993, and performed well at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever, to that date. It ran for more than 365 days in some centres. The film had a collection of ₹7 crore.

Themes
Certain themes that were discussed in the movie were Ganga’s yearning for intimacy with her husband Nakulan, Mental health disorders and why it’s important to turn to science rather than trust conventional modes of treatments as well as Dr Sunny and Ganga’s passionate friendship, all of which were rare in Indian cinema. These themes were not established in the later adaptations in other languages.

Legacy
Manichitrathazhu is considered as a classic and is hailed as one of the best films ever made in Malayalam cinema. The film has consistently fetched maximum ratings for its television screenings. Even twenty years after its release it has been screened more than 12 times a year on an average on Kerala's leading TV channel, Asianet. The film has received the maximum TRP rating on every screening; TRP ratings have increased every year, a rare record for a film produced in Kerala. For many Malayalis, Manichitrathazhu is a part of their cultural lives.

In a 2013 online poll in India by IBN Live, Manichitrathazhu was voted second among India's Greatest Films, by audience. The poll was conducted as part of the celebration of Indian cinema completing 100 years. The poll constituted a list of 100 films from different Indian languages. A saree featuring Shobhana in a song scene from this film was released in the market as the Nagavali saree.

One of the most memorable or defining scenes of the movie where Nakulan provokes Ganga to transform into the Nagavalli persona was recreated in later Malayalam films like Om Shanti Oshana. The film was re-released in theatres after 30 years on November 2023.

Spin-off
A spin-off titled Geethaanjali was released on 14 November 2013, directed by Priyadarshan with Mohanlal reprising his role as Sunny in lead role and Suresh Gopi returned as Nakulan but in a cameo appearance.