Trailers		Home > Telugu Movie Reviews > Grahanam Typical Offbeat Film Cast: Tanikella Bharani, Jayalalitha, Surya, Tallavajjula Sundaram, Kamal, Goparaju Ramana, Master Mohnish, Sivannarayana, Phani and Others. Art: Bhupesh R Bhupati. Costumes: Kiranmayi. Camera: PG Vinda. Editing: Lokesh. Music: K Vijay. Screenplay & Direction: Mohankrishna Indraganti. Producers: N Anji Reddy, BV Subba Rao & P Venkateswara Rao. Banner: Kanakadhara Creations. The film opened with advantage of having a feather in the cap, that is winning best director award in 52nd national film festival. It is pity they are unable to get theatres for its release, but for one sophisticated theatre that too having facility to screen this once in a day. The strength of this film is its base story by Chalam. Thus the battle is half won. The rest is how to edit it and put it on screen interestingly. In fact Chalam himself was such a brilliant writer, the film gets two advantages in his story: suspense and accessibility for scenic division. For that matter the narration itself is a guide for the artistes playing roles as to how they should act and react. The subject takes the audience very quickly into its grip. And the interest is retained almost till the end. Young director Mohan making debut with this, chose his actors suiting the roles perfectly. It is a story that combines sentiment, superstition and suspense in one stretch. The dialogue is very clear and the re-recorded music is mellow allowing the lines be heard properly. Audience could enjoy the sense and sensibility of the subject and its presentation. The story opens in a hospital with Surya, a doctor there, busy in treating a boy. He notices a woman sitting under a tree, alone looking highly concerned about the recovery of the boy. The doctor becomes curious after realizing who the woman is. But the moment he goes there she disappears. Dr Mohan, a colleague of Surya gets curious about the curiosity shown by his friend. Surya then starts narrating the story that comes to us as flashback. It takes us to a village where one Sastry (Tanikella Bharani) and his wife Sarada (Jayalalitha) are shown leading comfortable life. A young boy just about fourteen years frequents their house, because the woman looks after him well. He too is attached to her. One day he falls sick and the treatment given by a local quack does not help. Then a Tantrik is brought to treat him. After examining the boy, he tells that the boy is hit not because of any ailment, but because he had an affair with a woman much older than him. He called the disease as 'Dosha Gunam'. The boy in the bed starts uttering the name of Sarada in his delirious bouts. She is the same woman who has been pampering him. And the boy's parents and uncle start doubting Sarada's character. So does her husband Sastry, after learning about the whole episode. The Tantrik (Tallavajjula Sundaram) says that the fever would come down only when the blood of the woman taken from her thigh is injected into the boy's body. Her husband too suspects her character and beats her, when she starts protesting, denying the allegation. When she falls unconscious he takes the blood and gives it to them, which in turn is injected into the boy. Surprisingly the boy recovers. This news makes her husband to demand the wife leave the house alone, leaving their child with him. And this is the child who is grown up now into an adolescent, who is presently undergoing treatment. What happened then to the other boy who recovered? This element of suspense is retained for the climax. Better watch it and enjoy. Mohan makes an impressive debut and takes care that each character in the story does not cross its levels, suiting the times of Chalam, when the story is written. It is an absorbing narration. It appears that censors put their fingers here and there to render it acceptable to certain sections of the people. But it is not necessary, considering the period it was written. For Jayalalitha and Surya this is a film worth remembering. Tanikella has a typical role that he played with ease. In other roles of boy and his parents right artistes, picked out of theater, are cast. They do well. It is a typical offbeat film and purposeful.