Sankaranum Mohananum

This is Malayalam’s own “I can see dead people” film. Here Jayasurya has the Haley Joel Osment condition otherwise known as the Sixth Sense. He also gets to play double role as brothers Sankaran and Mohanakrishnan. Sankaran - an itinerant spirit is dead for most part of the movie but shows up in interesting costumes throughout and Mohanan, an ad photographer represents the living world.

Jayasurya has bagged many interesting roles these days – from the incidental villain in Cocktail and the happy go-lucky dude in Payyans to a forty five year old balding ghost spouting perfect Kannur Malayalam in this movie, he has shown quite a range. He is supported competently by Reema Kallingal, Meera Nandan, C.V.Sreeraman, Valsala Menon and others. Except for Kalpana who felt like an import from Travancore to Malabar, everyone else seemed to belong.

Most of the reviewers have been hard on this film, maybe they were expecting a more heavy-duty product from T.V.Chandran. Oh, can’t a man let his guard down once in a while? I, for one, in fact liked the existential comedy, a tad ‘Woody Allen’esque had Allen moved out of Manhattan to Malabar. The idea of 9 months grace period after death, the explanation for it and the new take on life after death titillates me enough to find pleasure in the film.

Wikipedia informs me that there is an autobiographical aspect to Sankaranum Mohananum. T.V.Chandran’s own brother died in Nigeria at an early age and the story setting in North Malabar where T.V.Chandran’s own birthplace(Thalassery) is serve as pointers to this fact. Now if I could lay hands on Alicinte Anweshanam and Susanna, I can be pre-qualified to give free unsolicited opinions on T.V.Chandran’s films, the only one I remember watching is Padam Onnu: Oru Vilapam.