Anandabhadram

One of my favorite movie, it realy feels the experience of village. Strong story about the black magic, really a nice movie

Its one of the best in malayalam film industry. Dont miss this. Each and every frame is excellent. Antagonist acting ufff this film has some extraordinary stuff.

The movie is really good - especially the story. I loved it a lot, and this was during very early days of Prithviraj which also made this movie a bit special.

Once a while, in movies, you will see something which could be termed as wonderful idea. The song Pinakkamano in Ananthabadram is one beautiful visualization of a melodious song. The paintings of Raja Ravi Varma were bought to life by Kavya Madhavan and Prithviraj and filmed by Santosh Sivan making his debut in Malayalam films as a director.

The movie starts when Ananthan (Prithviraj) arrives at Sivapuram, with his deceased mother's ashes. His mother wanted him to light the traditional lamps at his ancestral Kaavu. Ananthan grew up in San Fransisco, hence is alien to the culture and customs of his native village. He meets a host of endearing characters, including Bhadra (Kavya Madhavan) at Sivapuram. Digambaran (Manoj K Jayan) is not a friendly character and has serious issues with Madambis, that too issues spanning generations. He's in pursuit of legendary Nagamanickyam and is resolute and ruthless in his quest.

Digambaran has an enemy in Chemban (Kalabhavan Mani) who was blinded by Digambaran. Digambaran uses Chemban's sister Bhama (Riya Sen) in his black magic rituals. He also has the ability to do Parakayapravesam (process of transferring one's soul into another body) and to attain Manickyam, Digambaran needs the help of a girl from Madambi family. The Madambi family wants to anoint a girl from the family as Devi (Goddess) and a previous attempt at that ended in a tragedy with Bhadra's sister disappearance. Bhadra's sister is dead and is kept embalmed by Digambaran.

Madambi family has plans for Bhadra for they wanted her to be Devi. The inevitable happens and Bhadra falls in love with Ananthan. Digambaran does not like both the alternatives, either Bhadra becoming Devi or Bhadra marrying Ananthan. He gets into the final act and people start dying like flies...

This is one of the few movies which are capable of getting almost everything right. Script, Direction, Acting, Background Score, Editing, Special Effects, Art Direction and the list goes on. Manoj K Jayan has delivered his career best performance as Digambaran - One of the Greatest Villain ever. Kalabhavan Mani is almost as good as him but has less screen time. Prithviraj was fine except for a few scenes. Bt that's negligible. Script is perfect except for Prithviraj's English dialogues. Santhosh Sivan's work is top-notch as always. Editing is exceptional and a benchmark in Malayalam Film Industry. Art Direction deserves a standing ovation. The sets are so authentic. The locations are very well chosen. Background Score by Kannan is what makes the movie an Epic. It makes me wish this movie was released now so that I could experience it in Dolby Atmos.

Only things which weren't up to the mark are casting Riya Sen and one unnecessary song.

Even then this movie deserves a 10.