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One of the points that has come up often is regarding the voice behind Ganga and Nagavalli. Was Shobhana’s National Award justified?  Doesn’t that credit go to the dubbing artiste Bhagyalakshmi as well?

As the debate continues, please watch this clip. This shows Bhagyalakshmi giving voice to the most crucial scene in the movie. You see her start as Ganga and then transform into Nagavalli. It is absolutely stunning. It is very rarely that we get to see such a scene(Please fast forward to 10th minute).

Completion of acting  milestones by superstars are celebrated with fanfare.  But Shobhana’s completion of 25 years in movies  almost sneaked past us.  Her contribution to Malayalam cinema is enormous, blogger Ram takes a in-depth look at Shobhana’s career.

rted with movies in languages other than Malayalam, her strong foothold has always remained in the Malayalam film industry which recognized her abundant talent by providing her with roles of substance one after the other. April 18, Yathra and Kaanamarayathu were followed by memorable performances in Vaasthu Haara, Ananatharam, Ennale, Pappayude Swantham Appoos, Meleparambil Aanveedu, Mazhayethum Mumbe, Minnaminunginum Minnukettu, Sindhoora Rekha, Hitler, Kaliyoonjal, Magalkku, Agni Sakshi and many more.

She also holds the record for having done the maximum number of lead roles opposite both Mammootty (~60 films) and Mohanlal (~30 films). Her pairing with Jayaram is considered the best and the 8 films they did together have all been winners at the Box Office. She has also worked with directors of all genre, moving in and out of films with commendable ease. Her association with directors like Balachandra Menon (April 18), I V Sasi (Kaanamarayathu), Joshi (Mambazhakkalam), Fazil (Manichithrathaazhu), Sathyan Anthicaud (Sasneham), Jayaraj (Makalkku), Priyadarshan (Thenmavin Kombathu), Sibi Malayil (Sindhoora Rekha), Syamaprasad (Agni Saakshi), Kamal (Mazhayethum Mumbe), Bharathan (Chilambu), Padmarajan (Ennale), Mohan (Pakshe), G Aravindan (Vaasthu Haara), Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Anantharam), Thulasidas (Minnaminunginum Minnukettu), Anil Babu (Kaliyoonjal), Siddique (Hitler), Manirathnam (Dalapathy), K Balachander (Rudhra Veena), Revathy Menon (Mitr- My Friend), Pamela Rooks (Dance Like a Man) have all been equally successful[25 years of Sobhana!].

1. First the original starring Shobana, directed by Fazil

2. In the Kannada version P. Vasu asks Soundarya to walk as if she is in a park.

3. Thinking that the butchering was not upto mark, P. Vasu decides to shine some lights into Jyothika’s eyes in the Tamil version.

4. No lights or other gimmicks in Priyadarshan’s version, but Vidya Balan is supported by two actors who don’t know acting.

5. Now to cleanse the brain, watch the original once more.

At the end of it, we feel this movie should not have been remade, but subtitled and released. Manichitrathazhu experts, your comments are solicited

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Towards the end of the film, Sunny Joseph (Mohanlal) asks Nakulan (Suresh Gopi) to tell his wife Ganga (Shobhana) not to go shopping. She might question him, but Sunny asks Nakulan to be firm. The camera follows Nakulan as he walks into the room where Ganga is getting ready. He asks where she was going and she replies, “I told you, for shopping”. Nakulan tells her strongly not to go that day.

First Ganga asks why not and Nakulan keeps on saying that she should not go.Suddenly Ganga’s voice turns angry, her face turns menacing with the eyes rolled up and her whole body language changes. She points her finger at Nakulan and shouts in Tamil, and with the other hand lifts a wooden bed. Nakulan is terrified, but he shouts her name at the top of his voice. Ganga pauses and returns back to normal. Then she realizes that the mental patient of Madambally is herself and not Sridevi (Vinaya Prasad).

This is one of the powerful scenes in this movie which starts when Nakulan and Ganga come from Calcutta to Kerala for a project. Ignoring the warnings by their uncle Thampi (Nedumudi Venu), they decide to stay in an ancestral home which is considered to be haunted. The story is that a Tamil dancer Nagavalli was bought by the local king and she fell in love with another dancer. The king did not like this and had her killed. Her ghost was loitering around looking for revenge. and so they perform some pooja and lock the ghost in a room.

Ganga does not believe this and opens the room and various incidents start taking place. Sometimes vessels and stones are flung around, sometimes saris catch fire and the suspicion falls on Sridevi. Nakulan asks his uncle to show her to a psychiatrist, but he does not. Irritated, Nakulan calls his friend Sunny Jospeh to come and help him. How Sunny Joseph cures Ganga is the climax of the movie.

The story of this movie is very unique and has not been told before. First we thought it is a supernatural story, but as we understood the dual personality of Shobhana we got very interested in this character and how she would be able to get out of her predicament. The characters in the movie, Sunny Joseph, Nakulan, Ganga, Ammavan are all memorable and have been portrayed with realism.

Even though this is a ghost movie, there are no special effects. Director Fazil uses simple tricks like shadows on the wall and sounds to heighten the tension. In one scene, the whole family goes to watch a Kathakali performance. Sunny sits in the front and occasionally turns back to see if Ganga is alright. The sound of the drums heighten in the background. Then, once when Sunny turns back, there is silence and Ganga is not there. The intensity of the scene is heightened by the lack of any background sound, which we thought was a very innovative but subtle technique.

In this movie, the script by Madhu Mattom is the hero and Shobhana is the heroine. Shobhana had two roles, one as the mild mannered Ganga and the other as the revenge seeking Nagavalli. It during the Nagavalli phase that you see her transformation, in her voice and in her mannerism. Shobhana won a truly deserved National Award for this role.

Mohanlal makes his entry just before the interval, which is unconventional. From that point onwards, it is his show and the character he portrays is that of a fun loving psychiatrist. He is unconventional in his treatment style also. Mohanlal does not have much histrionics in this movie and plays a very subdued role.

For a movie which is a psycho-thriller, it has excellent comedy provided by Innocent, Lalitha and Mohanlal himself. There is a scene where Mohanlal goes to take bath and takes the clothes of Lalitha who was bathing in the next stall. Their conversation across the wall had us in splits.

There is only one scene which irritated us. There is a scene where an angry Sunny, takes Sridevi to a room and locks her up in front of the whole family. While everyone is stunned, Sunny Joseph breaks into a song, which was very odd. Mohanlal thinks that only Fazil could have pulled it off.

The story, screenplay and dialogue is by Madhu Mattom and we liked all three of them. There are no unnecessary scenes in this movie and each scene in the screenplay sustains our interest in the story. We also are impressed by the craft of director Fazil for making this movie very interesting. The movie also had a second unit by directors Sathyan Antikkad and Priyadarshan. M.G.Radhakrishnan has provided some memorable music for this movie. All the songs are nice to hear, but our favourite is Palavattom Pookalam

This movie is one of our favourites and is a must watch.

See Also:  Can Manichithrathazhu be remade?

The story of this movie is very simple. Puthenpurackal Chandran (Mohanlal) had a childhood flame Indira (Shobhana) and for various reasons could not marry her. He meets her after a long time and by then she is already married and has a child. Her husband, Dr. Raghuram, a drug addict was in jail for murder and he comes back to get Shobhana. Mohanlal kicks his ass, sends him away and reunites with Indira.

The challenge facing script writer T.A.Shahid was to stretch this story to some two and half hours and so Mohanlal is made as a gulf returnee. He could have been a mafia don or lottery winner or superman and it would not have impacted the story, but making him a gulf returnee allows the script writer to add two extra characters to the movie, Harisri Asokan and Kalabhavan Mani, two other gulf veterans whose only job is to praise the virtues of Chandran.

Chandran is also the All Sacrificing Brother^TM (ASB), like Balettan, or Mammotty in Valsalyam or countless other characters before them. If you are an ASB, you need a large family. That is provided by Kaviyoor Ponnamma as mother and Innocent as the uncle. Then there is a whole bunch of people like Baiju, Sudheesh and Vishnu who are Mohanlal’s brothers. Then there are the wives and children whose only job is to provide a backdrop for Mohanlal’s speeches.

When you have a large family like this, you have to sing a few songs in Vega Land. But few songs will not take us till interval. So a villain character, played by Shammi Thilakan, comes into picture and tries to embarass Mohanlal. Since Mohanlal is the hero, he does not get embarassed and returns the favour with some strong dialogue and action, like in Naatu Rajavu. These few altercations take us past half time and so this character vanishes completely from the story, not to be seen again.

Then Shobhana is introduced and a new storyline starts. Her husband makes an appearance and does not take kindly to the fact that Shobhana is seeing Mohanlal. He threatens Mohanlal and his family and then tries to terrorize Shobhana. Then the family of the ASB starts thinking, “Hey were were singing songs before Mohanlal took a liking for Shobhana, so it is all his fault”. They all take turns and insult Mohanlal and vanish. A lonely and misunderstood Mohanlal is joined by H. Asokan and K. Mani who talk about the miserable life in the gulf and how they are there for each other even when the family is not. By that time it is past two hours and there is a fight between Mohanlal and Raghuram and after that the family too comes back.
This movie is like a refresher course in old movies. In case you had forgotten the story of Balettan, Valiyettan or any other ettan movies, this will one will bring life back to some dead neurons. There are a few good things in this movie. First, Salim Kumar is not there. Second, even though Harisri Asokan is there, he is controlled so much that he does not irriate you. Mohanlal has successfully played the misuderstood person in Kireedam and Bharatham and this role is not much of a challenge. In those movies, he gave a very subduded performance and he let us share his pain with some brilliant acting. In Mambazhakkalam, he shouts everything. When he is sad, he says I am sad, when he is angry, he says that too.

One mystery for the movie watcher is why Shobhana agreed to do this role. Maybe no Malayali heroines and imports were available. There is nothing extra ordinary in Sanjeev Shankar’s camera work and even a bad film like Mayilattom had better cinemotography. Out of the seven songs by M.Jayachandran, Kandu Kandu is excellent and Kantha Njanum Varan is worth listening. The film is directed by Joshiy, who changed the spelling of his name to bring more luck, but in the process seems to have lost his talent for making excellent movies.

Finally, we may be dumb because we could not understand why the movie was named Mambazhakkalam.