Can Manichithrathazhu be remade?

This article was originally written in 2007 for Varnachitram.  Its is also referenced in Manichithrathazhu Wikipedia Page
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Hindi film industry (I love Hollywood but hate the term “Bollywood” ) is eagerly awaiting the release of Priyadarshan’s Bhool-Bhulaiya , a remake of Manichithrathazhu. Priyadarshan, who is already successful at re-making super hit Malayalam movies into Hindi, was also one of the second unit directors of Manichithrathazhu. I wish all financial and artistic success to Bhool-Bhulaiya, which I hope would be a refreshing change from the typical filthy-rich-people/NRI stories and “foren” locations of commercial Hindi movies.

But the question is “Can Manichithrathazhu be effectively remade into any other language outside of its original Kerala context”? The answer is an emphatic “No”. The story does not sit well even when transplanted to our neighboring Tamil Nadu. The character of Nagavalli embodies the spirit of Kannaki, a vengeful heroine of Tamil epic Chilappadikaram. Writer Madhu Muttam has cleverly revealed this inspiration for the character in the Ilankovadikal chilambu nalki…. lines of the movie’s Tamil-Malayalam duet “Oru murai vanthu parthaya…“. This means that the character of Ganga has to speak Malayalam since Nagavalli is her alter-ego and the core of the story is rooted in the duality of these two closely related languages.

The drama in this movie unfolds into its peak when this switching from Malayalam to Tamil happens. It has to be noted that no sub-titles were shown in the movie when Tamil dialogues were spoken. There was no need but still the audience could experience the dramatic impact of the language switching! Can any other pair of Indian languages be able to re-create this magic? Can any other dance form apart from Bharathanatyam be able to express the high voltage pangs of this (Angry and Sad) Khandita-Virahanayika? It is true that financially successful remakes have been made as Apthamithra(Kannada) and Chandramukhi(Tamil/Telugu) but the soul of this movie cannot be uprooted from Kerala–even if the re-maker is its original director Fazil. I can only postulate this because I refuse to watch any re-makes of this movie!

My second question is “Can this role be successfully enacted by anyone other than Shobana?”. And the answer would be another emphatic “No”. Even though Shobana had been acting in Malayalam movies since 1984, I never used to consider her as a top-notch actress. All changed once Manichithrathazhu was released. Audiences were stunned by her performance and mesmerized by the final Bharathanatyam dance number and exorcism scenes. She literally swept best actress award category at all levels – Film-Fare, Film-Critics, Kerala State and National awards, you name it.

The multiple-personality character of Ganga was a role of a lifetime and only an actress who possesses superior acting and classical-dancing skills and the physicality required to project a vindictive, super-natural heroine, could have done full justice to such a role. I just cannot think of any other actress other than Shobana to match this requirement.

Everyone agrees that the two peak moments of Shobana's performance in the movie are

1. The scene where Ganga turns into Nagavalli and then back into Ganga upon Nakulan’s refusal to her shopping plans.
2. The final Bharathanatyam dance and exorcism scenes.

But I want to draw everyone's attention to some of the nuances in Shobana’s characterization of the mild-mannered Ganga which may not be very obvious in first time or casual viewing. If you watch the movie a second time and carefully observe Ganga, you can see that in many of the scenes Shobana has used many subtle eyebrow archings, eye twitches, facial contractions, expressions and mannerisms, accurately portraying the agony and reactions of a repressed of mental patient.

In fact three of such scenes are narrated (and shown again as brief flashbacks) when Dr. Sunny explains Ganga’s multiple-personality disorder to her husband Nakulan. These three scenes are:

1. Ganga’s hyper-enthusiasm when she shows Nagavalli’s ornaments to Dr. Sunny and her subsequent anxiety when one of the anklets (“chilanka“) is missing.
2. The out-of-control altercation at the temple between Dr. Sunny and Ganga about the anklet.
3. Ganga’s reaction when she arrives at the congregation where Dr. Sunny had just busted her plan to kill Nakulan by poisoning his tea.

In all these moments, Ganga is on the verge of a mental breakdown and Dr. Sunny is seen diffusing the tension and switching the discussion by forcefully clapping his hands. The challenge in these situations is to not over-do it since it should not visible at first viewing (which would kill the suspense) but do it with controlled intensity so that someone watching the movie a second time can clearly observe it. The story of this movie is like a puzzle which has enough clues embedded within it to solve itself!

Other similar but more subtle acting moments:

1. Scene after the glass pane of the wall-clock is broken during a “ghost” incident at night. Ganga is shown terrified but at the same time there is an expression of relief in her face because no one is suspecting her.
2. Scene when Nakulan and Ganga meets Dr. Sunny on the day of his arrival and asks about Sridevi’s diagnosis. Dr. Sunny says that it’s curable since the illness is in its primary stages. On hearing this, Ganga is experiencing eye-twitching and facial contractions.
3. Scene when Kunjamma (KPAC Lalitha) explains to Ganga about Sridevi’s divorce and subsequent depression. Watch for Ganga’s walking posture, facial contractions and expressions.
4. Scene when Dr. Sunny jovially sings “Oru muria vanthu parayo…” when Ganga was giving him a guided tour of the forbidden Thekkini. Her smile slowly transforms into an angry, irritated expression. In fact all the scenes when Ganga and Sunny are in the Thekkini are sprinkled with great acting moments by both these legends.
5. Scene of Ganga watching the Kathakali performance at the temple. Ganga sits distant from her family members and the expression on her face is that of complete self-identification with the love-torn characters of the Kathakali unfolding in front of her eyes.

These subtle acting moments are very difficult to perform and the actress in Shobana should be celebrated for doing an accurate and convincing job at this. Director Fazil also made the climax dance sequence very interesting by showing the real Nagavalli dancing as a courtesan inside Ganga’s split mental space. This gave ample opportunity in this dance sequence to explore most of the navarasas (nine facial expressions) used in Indian classical dances. And Shobana performed this dance sequence beyond perfection. It reveals an artist who is in complete control of her facial expressions and fully aware of how a cinematographer’s camera will project them onto silver screen.

Another important aspect of this movie is that it is a repository of some of the gems in Indian classical music and dance. I can write an entire article analyzing the appropriateness of the ragas of the songs chosen by composer M.G. Radhakrishnan. Or, analyzing the adavus and abhinaya in the Bharathanatyam number choreographed and performed by Shobana (joined at the end by Sridhar). Hey, may be one day I may even write a book about this greatest psycho-thriller movie ever made!

Salt n’ Pepper is a Cultural Milestone

This was originally written in 2011 for Varnachitram

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Salt n’ Pepper rocks! The movie ushers in modernity into the stagnated landscape of Malayalam romantic comedies. And by “modernity”, I did not mean a six-packed hero and semi-nude heroine breaking out into a pelvic-thrusting fantasy song-and-dance sequence shot at some exotic locations in USA/Europe. Nor did I mean a campus or IT-company setting where script writers make us believe that almost anything can happen. The characters and premise of Salt n’ Pepper are very ordinary and very middle class. But they are not fighting the usual set of obstacles stacked against lovers portrayed ad-nauseam in Malayalam cinema: A hero struggling in finance/career or burdened with responsibility to marry-off his sisters, a heroine facing objections to her affair from family or some scorned man turned abusive. We have already seen umpteen number of movies covering such predicaments: time to move on! In Salt n’ Pepper, the protagonists are fighting against their own inhibitions, self-perceptions and mindsets.
Rough looking chronic-bachelor Kalidasan(Lal)is a government employee working as an archaeologist at the museum. And heavyset chronic-spinster Maya(Shweta Menon) is a dubbing artist in the movie industry. The younger generation is represented by Manu(Asif Ali) who is Kalidasan’s nephew staying with him while job-hunting in the city and Meenakshi(Mydhili) who is Maya’s rental roommate at the home-cum-beauty parlour owned by Mariya(Kalpana). Kalidasan is a food lover and is practically married to his dexterous resident cook Babu(Baburaj). Maya finds solace in her lonely life through cooking and savoring memories of her lost mother. A wrong cellphone order for “Thattil kutti Dosa” connects Kalidasan and Maya and the rest of the story unfolds in front of our eyes in the most hilarious way possible.
Few of the scenes that stand out for their innovation and/or boldness:

• Maya being a dubbing artist enables the movie to directly poke fun at the typical cliched romantic scenes found in Malayalam cinema. Maya herself is laughing at the outdated dialogues that she is told to dub. The question raised “Nammalenthaada ingane?” in the movie-within-movie is actually addressed to the whole Malayali community.

• Being a foodie, Kalidasan’s bride-seeing event at the girl’s house ends up with him instead falling in love with their resident male cook who had prepared unni-appam for the event. The cook elopes with the groom-to-be!

• I really liked the guts of the director to show a very realistic scene where Maya, Meenakshi and Mariya are celebrating new-year with booze. Maya eventually passes out drunk, lamenting about her life. Yes, we have seen intoxicated heroines in prior movies like Spadikam etc. but the intention there was solely comic relief.

• Did we witness the first ever romantic lip-to-lip kiss shown in a Malayalam mainstream movie? The director’s effort to innovatively use props like a tire-swing, a bridge across rivulet etc. to decently picturize a kissing scene that advances progressively from head to forehead to lips needs to be applauded. This historic first kiss executed in any other way probably could have be irked conservative family audience who are not used to such visuals in public. I am talking about picturization of the melodious duet “Kanamullal” composed by Bijilal and immortalised by Shreya Goshal and Ranjit.

• The audience were chuckling at the light-hearted purdah jokes that occur at the beauty parlour. Glad that it is coming from a Muslim director like Ashiq Abu himself.

The writer duo Syam Pushkaran & Dileesh Nair reminds us that script really is the king. Two movies old Ashiq Abu can now relax and enjoy the success of his path-breaking movie which is going to be heralded as a milestone in Kerala’s pop culture. In the acting department, Lal and Sweta Menon did a wonderful job, etching their characters to perfection. It felt like the character of Kalidasan was tailor made to suite Lal’s star persona. With Amina, Cheeru, Rathichechi and now Maya under her belt, Shweta Menon is becoming an irreplaceable asset to the Malayalam industry during her comeback innings. Asif Ali and Mydhili also did a convincing job portraying cupid-struck lovers who are attracted to each other but are also anxious because they are forced to hide their true identity. The surprise package of the movie is definitely Baburaj, who the audience is used to seeing only in villain roles. He was literally living as the skillful cook who is a perpetual bachelor practicing Hanuman-seva and body-building, and shares a very strong emotional bond with Kalidasan. There are gay undertones in the way in which the cook is presented and so is the case with Mariya’s assistant at her beauty parlour. It is truly a tribute to Bhagyalakshmi that the voice for Maya, the very first dubbing artist portrayed in a movie, is dubbed by the very first dubbing artist-cum-activist in the world. To Bhagyalakshmi’s credit, she has given a slightly different voice suiting Sweta’s character and body language.
National jury might have awarded the best film of India tag to ‘Adaminte Makan Abu’ which was released last month. But I would rate Salt n’ Pepper as the best movie that came out in 2011. The movie’s message put forward by Kalidasan & Maya is simple and straight forward: “Live to Eat, Live to Love”. Majority of Indians can not relate to hyper-religiousness and nearly suicidal spirituality of Adam’s son Abu. But Food and Love are two things that all of us, including Abu, can relate to. If you haven’t seen this gastronomic-romantic-comedy yet, go sprinkle this Salt n’ Pepper in your soul!