I went to watch this Sathyan Anthikkad movie expecting it to be a sequel to Manassinakkare and was not disappointed. Bhagyadevatha can well be described as a sequel as it tells the story from a village similar to Kinasseri, the village in the Manassinakkare. After reading till here if you are thinking whether to watch it or not, here is my recommendation - Go and watch it.
Sathyan has come up with the same set of actors in a village milieu to tell the story that is definitely a watchable film, compared to the standards of the films rolled out in Malayalam today! Jayaram is a local cable operator in a Kuttanad village, KPAC Lalitha is his mother, Innocent is his late dad's brother, Nedumudi is a tourist guide, Mamukkoya is a neighbour with a vallom, and heroine is daughter of government employed parents. While watching the first half, I thought the script was not written by Sathyan as it was racy but concise and clear and did not have the usual comic situations which make you laugh. I realised I was wrong when I watched the second half, it was the usual Sathyan screen play with Jayaram displaying mannerisms similar to those in second half of Yathrakkarude Sradhakku. Narain's character creates some anticipation of a twist but has no significance except contributing to an unnecessary song. The events when Jayaram tries to befriend his wife are typical Sathyan situations seen in earlier movies, and they actually stretch the second half without contributing anything to the main story. I think the second half could have been concluded in half an hour! But nevertheless, there are the usual insights from our daily lives that make Sathyan movies original. The ambitious hero who wants make a lot of money; Mamukkoya asks him 'Why do you need so much money when you can actually live comfortable life with what you already have?'. The comrades who think they are privy to decide what should a farmer do or grow in his agricultural land. The usual Malayali who worries about 'world news' when he has more than enough in his daily life to worry about (characters in the govt. office seen in the second half who talks about Sathyam fiasco). And a reference to the problems in the agricultural sector today, how it has become impossible to make it profitable with the attitude and cost of employed labourers.
Since Sathyan repeats almost all the artists including the music director, we always get the feeling that we have seen them before in one of his earlier movies. Even Illayaraja's compositions give this feeling, that we have heard them in one of the earlier movie of him with Sathyan. But the success of these movies lie in the concise script and definite story that form the back born, and the wonderful actors who make us feel like we are not watching a film. After all what is life more than a sequence of events repeated elsewhere at a different time, so how can we expect movies which depict life so beautifully to be different?!
PS: Trivandrum has lot of movie theatres in the centre of the city. But I have not had a single pleasant experience in watching films till yesterday. They are poorly managed with inadequate maintenance, impolite and abusive staff, and the entire event is thoroughly mismanaged which includes selling tickets in black market and switching off air condition when the show is going on! But yesterday, I was surprised to be in KSFDC's theatre Kairali. This is an exception to the mismanagement which is characteristic of government run businesses, the reservation counter is open all the time. So there is no rush to reserve the computer printed tickets with proper seat numbers unlike in other theatres where they sell the reservation tickets only before 15 minutes of starting the show!
