Why I didnt like Nagavalli?- My Analysis

Chandramukhi is one of the movies that really took me by surprise and it has become one movie I never miss whenever telecasted on Television. I watched Aptamitra (Kannada version) and liked it a lot. In fact Chandramukhi has increased my respect for P.Vasu as a master story teller. In the background of all this, Watching Nagavalli on first day was always a first choice. I still had my doubts if Vasu can weave the same magic again and If Venkatesh could make us forget Rajni. This is one movie where I didn’t even hear music before watching the film and I didn’t look at any reviews before entering the auditorium. With all the expectations I carried with me, I am disappointed with the film and would take you thru why I didn’t like it.

The movie is publicized as a sequel to Chandramukhi but it isn’t. The film starts as a continuation of Chandramukhi but it ends there. This is supposed to be a story of Nagavalli but directed preferred to continue the same old Chandramukhi story. The entire problem of the movie lies here. The title of the movie is ‘Nagavalli’ but you will hardly hear that name in the movie. We keep hearing Chandramukhi. The film started with Chandramukhi’s picture floating in the air and travelling in various directions over the titles. The start is good and I thought my decision to watch the flick isn’t wrong. Here comes the first song- Omkaaram with Kamalini. This is the best song in the film and I thought the director should have taken someone who knows dance as she is expected to dance well and dance is passion for gayatri. I took back my words towards the end of the movie as Kamalini did better job than Anushka. The story then shifts to the household of Sharathbabu where they are facing problems. Director takes us thru lots of incidents which make them worried and finally contacts Ramachandra Siddhanthi. The Scene of Sharath Babu meeting Ramachandra Siddhanthi was designed well but Siddhanthi was reduced to a joker later.  Director tried to use the age old ideas of B Grade suspense flicks to create doubt on Shraddha das as she tries to emote with her eyes.  The tempo picks up once Venky entering with a song which is specially designed on the occasion of Venky’s Silver Jubilee. The song and dance was almost similar to what Rajni did in Chandramukhi. It was as if the song was designed for Rajni and Venky acted in it. Venky tried couple of antics of Rajni and then takes off to Tirupati where the story is supposed to happen along with Brahmanandam. An ace comedian himself, Brahmanandam tried to copy Vadivelu and failed. I didn’t understand why he should copy someone rather than being himself.  Venky’s entry into the house was good and he settles down well.  From then onwards he is shown as someone who spends the day with family members.read woman and nights in investigating to find who is Chandramukhi. He travels to the library to find a book about the King and there he finds that the evil King Naga Bhairava Rajasekhara used to look like him.

This takes story into the flashback where Anushka played Nagavalli. At the outset Anushka looked good despite gaining some weight. But the biggest disappointment and negative point of the movie is Anushka who failed to dance to Ghirani Ghirani and earlier dance. Chandramukhi did well just because of the dance and failure to do the same costs the film. The main protagonist Nagavalli has a very small role in the film. Venky did well as the evil king in bits and pieces. The story comes back to the present where the doctor treats his first and the only case of Kamalini well and the film then proceeds to find who is affected by Chandramukhi. Richa did well in scenes before climax in bits and pieces. Repetition of Red lens on Richa was silly and she failed when she twisted her lips. But she did adequately well. The biggest surprise package came here in terms of 130 year old evil king. His makeup is awful with long nails and the face didn’t grow old for the old man. He jumps and dances like a young boy and this bit changed the film into total comedy. Forgot to tell you about another guest character played by a 30 ft graphic snake. Chandramukhi was a psychological thriller where Rajni cures Jyothika’s problem. Even in Nagavalli he tried to tell us that it’s a psychological problem as Richa read the book and empathized with Nagavalli but by showing snake and indicating that Nagavalli’s soul possessed her, the director got himself into confusion and confused all.

Shyam K Naidu did a decent job with camera but could see a lot of shaky shots. Paruchuri Brothers didn’t have much job except for couple of lines the evil king said. Another big blunder the film makers did is roping in Gurukiran as the music director. Though he did decent job for back ground score, the songs are a letdown. It looked like we are hearing to the songs of 1980s. Picturization also is bad.

P. Vasu couldn’t live up to the expectations and failed in his second attempt to keep the interest of the audience alive. As a senior director he is expected to know that the audience would expect better fare from him and he has to surprise them to win.  Scenes like blood oozing out of instrument when MS Narayana died are impressive but the main scenes disappoint. Venkatesh in his silver jubilee year is expected to deliver better performance. Shraddha Das and Richa are better in this movie. Dharmavarapu’s comedy failed and Brahmanandam disappointed. At the end, I returned disappointed.

P.S: Please note that these are my personal feelings when I watched the movie and I wouldn’t suggest any of you to go to the movie with the opinions voiced out by me.