This weekend got me indulged into some classic pictures from my childhood. I fondly remember when in 2007 a movie called 'Bhool Bhulaiyaa' means maze in english got released and I went with my parents to watch it in theatre.
It's actually a psychological horror with few punches of comedy as well. The actors are my absolute favourites and the movie still scares me even knowing the plot.
Having a major population of people showcasing Hollywood horror here I thought why not bring in some Bollywood taste as it's always good to have something different served.
Src
Attaining the cult status in cinema, this movie did marvellous job. The lead actress Vidya Balan threw her best lifetime performance into this film. Considering this is the remake of a 1993 Malayalam film.
Plot
The plot begins with a man and his family owning ancestral royal land and status in Rajasthan. Including a palace which was empty because of speculations of having a ghost of Manjulika- A performer who was tortured and killed by the king in past.
The owner of the house Siddharth Narayan Chaturvedi (played by Shiney Ahuja) and His archaeologist wife Avni Chaturvedi (played by Vidya Balan), returns to the native land after getting secretly marred in United States. Both husband and wife got a warm welcome from the family but they insisted them on marrying again in proper cultural rituals.
But Siddharth wanted to stay in their rightful palace even if it was accused of being haunted as he and his wife donot believed in ghosts.
The royal wedding took place and the entire family started living in the palace.
Src
The palace was huge but Avni was always fascinated of old things being an archaeologist explained her curiosity. The fact that they were not allowed to visit the top most floor of the palace as it was haunted and locked properly, Avni still visited and opened every door and locks. which had no consequences at that time but slowly and steadily things started escalating and drifting towards a different pace. mysterious incidents of fire and minor accidents with unknown sound of music started coming everyday which made the family restless.
At this point the movie seemed quite cliché and regular ghost story but it isn't why did it's genre is psychological horror just because it is something unique
Drifting back to the story, The problems were all pointing out to a single girl called Radha (played by Amesha Patel) who was a family member and all such misshaping's alerted Siddharth and made him contact our another lead actor, psychiatrist Dr. Aditya Shrivastav (played by Akshay Kumar) who gave the charm to the story.
Src
The person in red is chota pandit played by Rajpal Yadav- the god of comedy in Bollywood. He bought the comedy factor.
Among many funny scenes there were some goose bumps arousing scenes as well which scared the hell out of me.
The presence of Aditya was not much appreciated by the family except Siddharth and Avni since they were old fashioned and considered him idiot for curing their daughter Radha who was accused of being mad.
Aditya simply unravelled the mysteries he even travelled into different parts of India in order to understand the reality of Ghosts.
The Final Reveal
During all these times everyone was made to believe that Radha has been posed by the ghost but the reality was quite different. As Aditya told Siddhartha that it's his wife who thought herself as munjulika and behaved like one during night. It's all in her mind as she walks in dark and on the top most floor during night, wears all munjulika's clothes, dances like her and thinks like her as that was a mental problem which caused her to behave as such!
She had dissociative identity disorder, making them think that they are someone else and they behave like them.
The scariest Part
There was no cure for the said disease but she may transform herself completely into munjulika super soon. She had portrayed different characters from life of munjulika to her life, like she imagined her husband as the king who killed munjulika's lover and made her attempt suicide, and so on.
On the final day of durgaashtmi when she was about to turning into munjulika completely by killing Siddhartha, Aditya made a plan and lured her ghost self into a circle and bought Siddhartha on a flat surface lying right in front of turned avni who wanted to kill him so bad. on the time of killing he inverted the flat surface and she killed the mannequin of Siddhartha and got rid of her sickness. as her revenge was successful.
Actually Avni felt pity for munjulika who's lover was killed and she attempted suicide being caged by the king who did all such things before dying she cursed the palace.
Vidhya Balan played the role of munjulika so well that after many years it's still appreciated. she did an outstanding job!
I just found a clip of approx. 6 minutes, here Vidhya balan was exposed as munjulika and she imagines all that would have happened to munjulika while inacting herself as avni turned into munjulika.
Conclusion
I want to appreciate singer Shreya ghoshal for executing such a difficult song which is present in the video above. Moreover entire cast was amazing, played wonderful role. Everyone justified the role. Loved the cinematography, the writing, direction and music was wonderful it was also a box office hit back in 2007.
I would fondly give 10/10 to this movie, you can easily watch it on youtube.
