Manichitrathazhu

Newly weds Nakulan (Suresh Gopi) and Ganga (Shobana) arrive at their ancestral tharavad to live there for a few months. A legend surrounds the house that a spirit of a young dancer who was brutally murdered centuries ago, haunts it. Rumor is that her spirit is contained in part of a house that is no longer opened. Paying scant attention to the pleas of their relatives, the young honeymooners throw open the doors. Soon things start to go bump in the night and people suspect that the dancer's spirit has possessed someone in the household. In exasperation Nakulan persuades his psychiatrist friend Dr. Sunny (Mohanlal) to come down and put an end to all the nonsense. A rare thriller infused with graceful comedy that won critical acclaim and box success in 1993, holds it ground even today.

Rating: * * *

Agnisakshi

Thangam (Srividya) plunges the ashes of her foster brother Unni (Rajit Kapoor) in the Ganga and finds herself awash with memories. Memories of growing up as a child born out of a Sambandham in a Namboodari illam. Thangam is enthralled with Devaki (Shobana), Unni's wife through whose eyes she realizes the suffering of Namboodari women. The community still holding on to the arcane traditions of yester year as the world around it changes. The film is set during the twilight of India's dependence on the British and when the caste system still reared its ugly hood. A film drenched in melancholy that only a Malayali of the ilk of Shyamaprasad could have directed and one only the Kerala pysche would have appreciated.

Rating: * * *