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Manichitrathazhu (transl. The ornate lock) is a 1993 Indian Malayalam-language psychological horror film directed by Fazil, written by Madhu Muttam, and produced by Swargachitra Appachan. The story is based on a tragedy that happened in the Alummoottil tharavad, a central Travancore family, in the 19th century. The film dealt with an unusual theme which was not common in Indian cinema at the time. The film became the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever at the box-office and received widespread critical acclaim.

Directors Siddique-Lal, Priyadarshan, and Sibi Malayil served as second-unit directors. The cinematography was by Venu and it was edited by T. R. Shekar. The film has an ensemble cast featuring Mohanlal, Shobana, Suresh Gopi, Nedumudi Venu, Innocent, Vinaya Prasad, K. P. A. C. Lalitha, K. B. Ganesh Kumar, Sudheesh, and Thilakan in the main roles. 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.

Apart from being the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever, Manichitrathazhu is considered as one of the best Malayalam films ever made. It ran for 365 days in theatres. Manichitrathazhu was remade after 10 years in four languages – in Kannada as Apthamitra, in Tamil as Chandramukhi, 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.

Plot

A young couple, Ganga and Nakulan, arrives at Nakulan's ancestral home tharavadu called Madampalli. Hailing from a family that follows tradition and superstitions, Nakulan's uncle Thampi objects to the couple's idea of moving into the allegedly haunted mansion, which Nakulan ignores. The couple moves in, following which seemingly supernatural events begin to occur.

The mansion was occupied in ancient times by Sankaran Thampi, a feudal lord of the province who was also the karanavar (head) of the tharavadu. In his heyday, he had brought in a dancer, Nagavalli, from Tamil Nadu as his concubine. But she was already in love with a man named Ramanathan, a dancer who came along with her secretly and settled in a house beside the mansion. Learning of their affair and their plan to elope, Sankaran Thampi murders Nagavalli in her room at the mansion. Legend has it that on the eighth day of Navaratri, on Durgashtami night (an annual Hindu celebration), Nagavalli returned as a blood-thirsty spirit, intent on killing the chieftain and drinking his blood, but he was saved upon chanting some mantras. With the assistance of sorcerers, Thampi escaped from the wrath of Nagavalli. Her spirit was locked in the South side of the mansion (Thekkini) by placing a talisman over the lock. Later Sankaran Thampi committed suicide and his spirit was locked up in the same Thekkini, by means of an ornate enchanted lock called manichitrathazhu.

Ganga manages to unlock the Thekkini, only to find ancient valuables such as jewellery, musical instruments etc. Upon learning about the unlocking of the Thekkini, fearing the spirits are on the loose, Nakulan's uncle Thampi and family move into the mansion to try and re-seal the Thekkini lock, while also looking out for Nakulan and Ganga. However, various unclear sightings of a woman are witnessed around the mansion, along with attempted attacks on various people at the mansion, including Nakulan's cousin Alli and his wife Ganga. While most of the family including Thampi believe that Nagavalli's ghost roams the mansion, Nakulan, disapproving of supernatural theories, suspects Sreedevi, Thampi's daughter, of being mentally ill, hence orchestrating the incidents at the mansion. Hearing of this, Thampi and the family fear that Sreedevi might be possessed by Nagavalli's spirit.

Sreedevi, Nakulan's cousin and Thampi's daughter, according to tradition, was to be married to Nakulan; however, after finding that Sreedevi had an ominous horoscope, Nakulan's mother withdrew from this proposal, and got Nakulan married to Ganga; later, Sreedevi entered a marriage which was short-lived. Sreedevi's tragic history, along with her perceived gloominess, and her being the only person present during an attack on Ganga, lays cause for suspicion of her.

Dr. Sunny Joseph, a brilliant yet frolicsome Psychiatrist and Nakulan's close friend is called from the United States to investigate. Soon enough Dr. Sunny finds out that Nakulan's conclusions are not as obvious and he uncovers a plan to commit a murder during the upcoming Durga Ashtami Festival. Sunny's trained psychiatric mind begins to suspect that Ganga could well be the mental patient of Madampalli. He investigates Ganga's childhood and past. Ganga grew up in a highly superstitious family and had partaken in various religious rituals as a child. Her parents had left her to her grandmother as a 3 year old and never bothered about her due to their busy lifestyle. This made her sensitive as an individual; so when she came to know that her parents were moving her to Calcutta she was unable to come to grips with it. She had become very close to her grandmother and didn't want to leave her village and her ancestral home. It was a period of great emotional and psychological turmoil for her, and she became afflicted with multiple personality disorder. Madampalli with its share of superstitions and dark tales evokes memories of the childhood days in her, and she slowly develops the personality of Nagavalli after having empathised with her.

Meanwhile, Nakulan's uncle, Thampi, having lost faith in Dr. Sunny, calls in a renowned tantric expert Pullattuparam Brahmadathan Namboothiripad to rid his family of the supernatural menace. As fate has it, both the Namboothiripad and Dr. Sunny are old acquaintances and mutually admire each other's expertise in their respective fields. At his own risk, Sunny reveals the secret to Nakulan though he hides some of facts which he observed from Ganga's alter ego behaviour.

When Ganga transforms into Nagavalli, her alter ego assumes the man staying in old Ramanathan's house as Ramanathan which unfortunately was Mahadevan who was fiance of Alli. So as she assumes Nakulan to be the cruel Karnavar- Sankaran Thampi, thereby waits till Durga Ashtami night to take revenge on him. These kind of associating mystical codes, Ganga's alter-ego picked from the tales and family connections of the house.

In one of the more memorable scenes of the movie, Ganga also gets to know about her illness during a manifestation of her hidden personality, that of Nagavalli. Sunny, with help of the Namboothirippad, plans an elaborate Tantric ceremony to invoke Ganga's Nagavalli persona and make it believe that it will finally be able to kill Sankaran Thampi. The plan is put into action and in a fiery climax, the blood thirsty Nagavalli exacts revenge on the cruel Karanavar, Sankaran Thampi, by making Nakulan lie down on a platform, and giving a sword to Nagavalli. As Nagavalli is about to pick up the sword, Sunny turns the platform upside down, thereby revealing a blood-filled dummy, which resembled the Karanavar. Thus, Nakulan is saved, and he escapes, and watches the scene. Ganga, in her extreme rage, as Nagavalli, thinks that she actually kills the Karanavar, and drinks the dummy's blood, thereby making her feel like she has accomplished her task. Ganga falls down into a hypnotic sleep.

Ganga wakes up from her hypnotic sleep and learns that she is completely cured of the illness. Sunny expresses his intent to marry Sreedevi, and they all drive off happily.

Cast

• Mohanlal as Dr. Sunny Joseph, a Psychiatrist
• Suresh Gopi as Nakulan, Ganga's husband
• ] as Ganga and Nagavalli
• Nedumudi Venu as Thampi, Nakulan's maternal uncle
• Vinaya Prasad as Sreedevi, Thampi's daughter
• Sridhar as Mahadevan, a college lecturer and poet, fiancé of Alli
• Sudheesh as Chandhu, Thampi's son
• Innocent as Unnithan, Bhasura's husband
• K. P. A. C. Lalitha as Bhasura, Unnithan's wife
• Thilakan as Pullattuparam Brahmadathan Namboothiripad
• Kuthiravattam Pappu as Kattuparamban, priest in local temple
• K. B. Ganesh Kumar as Dasappan Kutty
• Rudra as Alli, daughter of Unnithan and Bhasura
• Vyjayanthi as Jayasri, younger daughter of Thampi
• Kuttyedathi Vilasini as Thampi's wife

Production

Filming

The climax scene and major parts of the film were filmed in Padmanabhapuram Palace and Hill Palace, Tripunithura.

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 artiste 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.

Reception

Box office

Manichitrathazhu performed well at the box office and became the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever, to that date. It ran for more than 365 days in some centres. The film gained a profit of ₹3 crore for the producer.

Awards

Legacy

Manichitrathazhu 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.

In a 2013 online poll by IBN Live, Manichitrathazhu was listed second in India's Greatest Film of All Time. 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. As per the statistics of 2015, Manichitrathazhu is the most reviewed horror film ever in IMDb, surpassing Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) with 2517 reviews.

Remakes

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Manichitrathazhu" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• Manichithrathazhu later inspired remakes and sequels in other languages, such as Apthamitra and its sequel Aptharakshaka in Kannada starring Vishnuvardhan, Chandramukhi in Tamil and Telugu (dubbed) starring Rajinikanth and its sequel in Telugu titled Nagavalli starring Venkatesh, Bhool Bhulaiyaa in Hindi and Rajmohol in Bengali.
• The central character played by Shobhana is named Ganga in all the remakes except Bhool Bhulaiya and Rajmohol. In Hindi, the character is named Avni, played by Vidya Balan whereas in Bengali, the character is named Deboshree, played by Anu Choudhury.
• All three South Indian versions (Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil) earned the actresses playing the central character (Shobhana, Soundarya, Jyothika, respectively) the state awards for best actress of the respective states (Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu).
• In Apthamitra (the Kannada version) the character of psychiatrist, played by Vishnuvardhan, is given more screen time. The Tamil version, Chandramukhi, followed the same pattern. Both films were directed by P. Vasu. However, the Hindi version (Bhool Bhulaiyaa, directed by Priyadarshan) and the Bengali version (Rajmohol directed by Swapan Saha)stuck to the original script.
• The story was not credited to Madhu Muttam in Apthamitra and Chandramukhi, in which the story was credited to the director P. Vasu himself. However, in Bhool Bhulaiyaa the story was credited to Madhu Muttam, following a Kerala High Court verdict in a case filed by him.
• Long before Telugu version Chandramukhi was dubbed, Manichithrathazhu was dubbed into Telugu as Aathmaragam.
• Apthamitra's sequel, Aptharakshaka starring Vishnuvardhan was written and directed by P. Vasu and went on to become a huge success in Kannada.
• P. Vasu also planned to remake it in Tamil as Chandramukhi 2. But as Rajnikanth wasn't available, he approached Ajith Kumar for the film. But the Tamil version could never make it to the sets and finally Telugu producer Bellamkonda Suresh bought the movie rights and the movie was released as Nagavalli in Telugu starring Daggubati Venkatesh.
• Even before the movie was officially remade in Kannada in 2004 as Apthamitra , the key sequences including the climax were copied in the 2004 Kannada movie Sagari which released five months before Apthamitra.

Spin-off

A spin-off titled Geethanjali was released on 14 November 2013, with Mohanlal reprising his role as Sunny.

See also

• List of Malayalam horror films
• Mental illness in film
• Dissociative identity disorder
• Identity formation

References

1. "Made in Malayalam". The Times of India. 6 March 2016. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
2. "High five". The Hindu. 16 June 2016. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
3. Social Mobility in Kerala: Modernity and Identity in Conflict. Pluto Press. 2000. p. 264. ISBN 0-7453-1693-X. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
4. Nair, Sree Prasad (22 April 2016). "4 Mohanlal film remakes that Akshay Kumar owned". CatchNews.com. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
5. ^ "Of Bhool Bhulaiya, and a classic dumbed down". Rediff.com. 16 October 2007. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
6. Menon, Neelima (24 December 2018). ""It Will Be A Huge Flop". 20 Fascinating Facts About The Making Of Manichitrathazhu, In Fazil's Words". Film Companion. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
7. James, Anu (9 January 2016). "It wasn't Bhagyalakshmi who dubbed for classic character Nagavalli in Manichitrathazhu, director Fazil reveals". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
8. James, Anu (11 January 2016). "Nagavalli-Manichitrathazhu controversy: Dubbing artist Bhagyalakshmi, director Fazil break their silence". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
9. Biscoot Regional (20 September 2013). "Manichitrathazhu 1993: Malayalam Full Movie | #Malayalam Movie Online | Mohanlal Movies | Shobana". YouTube. Biscoot Regional. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
10. "Manichitrathazhu at MSI". Retrieved 16 January 2016.
11. James, Anu (5 December 2016). "Mohanlal's Manichitrathazhu gets a trailer after 23 years". International Business Times. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
12. "25 Years Of Manichithrathazhu: Shobhana, Director Fazil Pay Tribute To Iconic Malayalam Film". HuffPost. 24 December 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
13. ^ IBN Live (12 May 2013). "'Mayabazar' is India's greatest film ever: IBNLive poll". CNN-News18. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
14. "10 Mollywood films that ran for the longest time". The Times of India. Times News Network. 31 May 2016. Archived from the original on 28 July 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
15. "Malayalam cinema faces a threat" (PDF). The Statesman. 24 September 1994. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
16. "41st National Film Awards". International Film Festival of India. Directorate of Film Festivals. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
17. "State Film Awards". prd.kerala.gov.in. Department of Information and Public Relations. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
18. "Manichithrathazhu has received the maximum TRP rating!". The Times of India. Times News Network. 17 November 2014. Archived from the original on 28 July 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
19. Broadbent, Giles; Scott, Patrik (30 October 2015). "How many of these 100 best horror films have you seen?". The Wharf. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
20. Ramanujam, Srinivasa (21 July 2015). "Malayalam remakes click in Kollywood". The Hindu. Retrieved 6 February 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
21. "Case of the missing marbles". The Hindu. 19 October 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M4LixcpZNY
23. Nagarajan, Saraswathy (1 August 2013). "Return of Dr. Sunny". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 6 February 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2020.

External links

• Manichitrathazhu at IMDb

• 1993 films
• 1990s Malayalam-language films
• Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment National Film Award winners
• Films about exorcism
• Films directed by Fazil
• Films featuring a Best Actress National Award-winning performance
• Indian films based on actual events
• Indian films
• Indian ghost films
• 1990s psychological horror films
• 1990s ghost films
• Indian psychological horror films
• Malayalam films in series
• Malayalam films remade in other languages