(B)Lack Magic...

The first thing you notice about "Ananthabhadram" is the excellent coordination between the Editor (Sreekar Prasad), Art Director (Sunil Babu), Costume Designer (S B Satheesh), Make up man (Pattanam Rasheed) and the cinematographer (Santhosh Sivan), who in this case doubles up as the Director. The visuals are stunning, the props and background authentic and all characters have been given distinct looks that stay with you for a very long time. Special mention need to be made about Manoj K Jayan playing the evil Tantrik Digambaran and Kavya Madhavan who plays Bhadra has never looked so fetching!

This film that deals with black magic, evil spirits, pooja, tantra, angels and demons had immense cinematic appeal, something that every reader of Sunil Parameshwaran's book (on which the movie is based) of the same name would agree but towards the last 30 minutes of the movie, you keep wondering why Sunil and Santhosh ended up making changes to the story line so much so that Ananthabhadram which started with a lot of promise ends up being just another regular commercial fare. The stunts towards the last 15 minutes is so irritating that you feel like hitting the director right across his face!

Riya Sen's casting and characterization leaves a lot to be desired. At times you wonder what exactly is she doing in this movie! M G Radhakrishnan's music is soothing but his background score follows a set pattern that is so characteristic of the 'manthravada' cinema of yore! Biju Menon is wasted but Manoj K Jayan, Kalabhavan Mani and Cochin Haneef give credible performances. All other characters in the movie have to look frightened, irritated or disturbed- this is especially the case with the ammavan played by Nedumudi Venu.

Santhosh Sivan who had given us internationally renowned films like Halo, Malli, Terrorist, Navarasa and Tahaan fails miserably in putting together an entertainer, forget another historic one! "Ananthabhadram" can at best be compared to the director's previous "Asoka" which had neither the critics nor the masses going with it!

PS: The movie was released in 2006 but I had the chance of watching it only yesterday on CD! I realized that I had not missed anything great :-)