How Malayalam horror Manichitrathazhu inspired Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Chandramukhi 2

Kangana Ranaut in 'Chandramukhi 2', which has music by M.M. Keeravaani. (Screen grab/YouTube/SunTV)

A haunted house with a vengeful female ghost – it’s a premise that never gets too old in the horror film genre. But Fazil’s Manichitrathazhu (1993) was more than that. At a time when the psychological horror film was still new to the Indian audience, the Malayalam director made a film that walked a tightrope, balancing traditional beliefs and practices with modern methods and science.

Manichitrathazhu is about the strange happenings in an ancient mansion when a couple – Nakulan (Suresh Gopi) and Ganga (Shobana) – move in, ignoring the advice of the family elders. A female ghost appears to be haunting the mansion, particularly targeting Nakulan. A rationalist, Nakulan is dismissive of a supernatural connection and invites his friend, renowned psychiatrist Sunny (Mohanlal), to look into the matter. The eccentric doctor soon discovers that it is Ganga who is behind everything though she doesn’t realize it. With a history of abandonment and neglect during childhood, Ganga has dissociative identity disorder. She is consumed by the tragic story of a dancer who once lived in the mansion, and makes it her mission to seek revenge on her behalf. In a dramatic climax, Sunny, with the help of a tantric expert (Thilakan), ‘cures’ her of her condition, thereby saving his friend Nakulan and their marriage.

Over a decade later, director P Vasu remade Manichitrathazhu in Kannada as Apthamitra (2004) and in Tamil as Chandramukhi (2005). In Bengali, it was remade as Rajmohol (2005) by Swapan Saha and in Hindi, Priyadarshan directed Bhool Buhlaiyaa (2007). In every language, the idea of a beautiful dancer who haunts a mansion seeking her revenge fascinated the audience. So much so that 18 years after the Tamil remake came out, a sequel with the dancer’s origin story is set to hit the screens on September 28.

Starring Kangana Ranaut and Raghava Lawrence, Chandramukhi 2 revolves around the dancer who was unjustly treated and harassed by King Vettaiyan. In the Malayalam original, the role was played by Shobana – she won a National Award for it – and the character of the dancer was called Nagavalli. So, what explains the enduring legacy of Manichitrathazhu and why is the dancer still such a figure of intrigue?

The exotic Other

In Manichitrathazhu, Nagavalli is a Tamil dancer from Thanjavur. In the Kannada and Tamil versions, she is Telugu. In the Hindi version, she is Bengali. It is only in the Bengali version that the dancer speaks the same language. Nagavalli’s identity as an outsider makes her more mysterious to the characters in the film, and consequently, the audience. Her story automatically acquires a layer of romance because she is plucked out of her familiar surroundings and planted in the court of an autocrat.

The Tamil song she sings – ‘Oru murai vanthu parthaya’ – in the Malayalam original is a lover’s forlorn cry to her beloved, and also functions as a challenge to the man who tries to keep her under his thumb. Like Nagavalli, Ganga too is an outsider in the sense that she spent a significant number of years in Kolkata, and Nakulan chose to marry her over his cousin. She is a stranger to the family, and it seems appropriate that Nagavalli chooses to “speak” through her in a different tongue.

Though Ganga tries hard to fit in, it is clear that the uncles, aunts and cousins see her as an outsider. Given that her parents were largely absent in her childhood, she identifies closely with the abandonment that Nagavalli must have experienced though she is in a seemingly happy marriage. At some point, the connection she feels with Nagavalli consumes her so much that she starts to believe she is Nagavalli. She becomes the exotic Other that Nakulan’s family has deemed her to be.

The contrasting personalities

Though Ganga sees herself as Nagavalli, outwardly, they are contrasting personalities. Ganga is a married woman who conforms to societal norms, and dearly loves her husband. Towards the end, when she is “cured”, she identifies herself as Ganga Nakulan. This is to reiterate that she is no longer Nagavalli, the dancer who targeted Nakulan in her delusional state, believing him to be the autocrat who had forced her to live in the mansion.

Unlike Ganga who has led a protected life, Nagavalli is an independent woman with a mind of her own. She is used to functioning with agency and when that is taken away from her, Nagavalli rebels. She vows to seek revenge when her lover, a fellow dancer, is killed. It is interesting that when Ganga transforms into Nagavalli, she sees her husband as the enemy. Though they share a loving relationship, Ganga perhaps subconsciously recognizes the shackles that a patriarchal institution like marriage places on her. She views Nakulan as a symbol of these restrictions.

Take, for instance, that spectacular scene when Nakulan – on Sunny’s advice – stops Ganga from going shopping. She tries to convince him as Ganga, placing rational arguments before him. But when he continues to behave like a figure of authority, she transforms into Nagavalli, speaking in Tamil and demanding to know why he won’t let her go. The easygoing, submissive Ganga who always checks with Nakulan if she can do this and that in the house, has to morph into the rebellious Nagavalli if she is to have her way.

The contrasting personalities of Ganga and Nagavalli are so important because they lead the audience to look for answers elsewhere. It is only when we are well into the second half of the film that we begin to suspect Ganga. She is both the demure heroine and the unbridled villain of the film.
Some of the remakes chose to make the character of the psychiatrist the target of the dancer. In Chandramukhi, for instance, Rajinikanth plays the psychiatrist and he’s pitted against Jyotika, who plays the dancer/wife. But this choice – clearly made to cater to the star’s fanbase and give him the lion’s share of the screen time – makes the story less effective. The conflict in Manichitrathazhu is that as Ganga, the woman wants to save her husband from all evil, and as Nagavalli, she wants him to pay for his sins. It is this love-hate duality within the same person that makes the film so compelling.

Of forbidden love

In Manichitrathazhu, Ganga, as Nagavalli, becomes convinced that the poet next door is actually her dancer-lover from the past. The poet is engaged to Alli, a young woman who is Ganga’s relative by marriage. Angered by this, Ganga-Nagavalli targets Alli and also attempts to thwart the impending wedding by falsely claiming that the poet tried to assault her.

Nagavalli’s relationship with her lover, a fellow dancer, is put to a brutal end by the autocrat who kills him. She is maddened by what she sees, and decides to avenge the murder. The desire for her lover that Nagavalli harbours is forbidden by the autocrat, but in Ganga’s case, it is forbidden by societal norms. As a devoted wife, she must be loyal to Nakulan, and her desire for a younger man is a matter of shame. Even in her frenzied state, Ganga as Nagavalli understands this – and that is why she comes up with the ploy of pretending that the poet tried to assault her, rather than express her desire for him openly. Just as Nagavalli seeps into Ganga, Ganga too seeps into Nagavalli, and that is where the character draws her cunning from.

Thirty years since its release, Manichitrathazhu still has an incredibly high recall value among the audience. Be it the dialogues or the very memorable songs by MG Radhakrishnan and background score by Johnson, the audience only needs to listen to a snatch of it to immediately contextualize what they are watching. For instance, in the Malayalam romcom Ohm Shanti Oshana (2014), when Nazriya’s character Pooja Mathew wants to go out and her father tells her not to, she shows signs of turning into Nagavalli and her father instantly changes his mind. The scene is funny because the audience thinks of Shobana and Suresh Gopi facing off in Manichitrathazhu.

Bollywood already made a successful sequel with Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022), one of the few blockbuster Hindi films to come out in the post-pandemic period that witnessed flop after flop. It remains to be seen if Chandramukhi 2 can capture the imagination of the audience the way the first film did. Considering the aura around the OG rebel girl, it is a tough ask indeed.