Devadoothan

Devadoothan
Theatrical release poster
Malayalam	ദേവദൂതന്‍
Directed by	Sibi Malayil
Produced by	Siyad Koker
Written by	Raghunath Paleri
Starring	Mohanlal Jayaprada Vijayalakshmi Vineeth Kumar Murali
Music by	Vidyasagar
Cinematography	Santosh Thundiyil
Edited by	L. Bhoominathan
Production company	Kokers Productions
Distributed by	Kokers and Anupama Release
Release date	27 December 2000 (2000-12-27)
Running time	158 minutes
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Devadoothan (English: The Heavenly Messenger) is a 1999 Indian Malayalam-language musical mystery horror film directed by Sibi Malayil and written by Raghunath Paleri. The film stars Mohanlal, Jayaprada, Vijayalakshmi, Vineeth Kumar, and Murali. The cinematography was done by Santosh Thundiyil and features a soundtrack and film score composed by Vidyasagar.

Vishal Krishnamoorthy (Mohanlal) was expelled from his college, accusing him for playing a protected musical instrument called the Seven Bells. Years after, he receives an invitation letter from his old college principal (Janardhanan) to direct a musical play in the college. Krishnamoorthy returns to college to unravel the mystery of the Seven Bells, that plays by itself at night.

Devadoothan was a Christmas release on 27 December 2000. The film received positive critical reception, it won four Kerala State Film Awards, including the award for Best Film with Popular Appeal and Aesthetic Value, Best Music Director for Vidyasagar for its critically acclaimed songs,

Plot

The story begins with Vishal Krishnamoorthy (Mohanlal) is a reputed musician, who is about to receive a prestigious musical award for his album "Rhythm of Love". From there, the story cuts back to his past where Vishal is struggling to pay a large debt and to build a career of his own. Despite having a deep knowledge and passion for music, he experiments with other businesses all of which ended in failure. In this context, Vishal gets a letter from the principal-cum-priest (Janardhanan) of his old college, from which he was expelled. It was an invitation to work as the director for a musical play with the present students of the college. At first, Vishal refuses to accept the invitation because of his hatred towards the college, but later decides to go.

Years ago, Vishal was expelled from the college by Madam Angelina Ignatius (Jayaprada) who runs the institution in memory of her late father, William Ignatius (Kitty). There was a special musical instrument called the "Seven Bells" which was kept by Angelina, locked in a chapel inside the college and no one was allowed near it. Vishal was accused by Angelina for playing the Seven Bells, although he refused, claiming that the instrument was playing on its own. But Angelina had him expelled from the college.

Vishal arrives at the college. The play is about the love story of Mary and Nikhil Maheshwar. Mary is the only daughter of a rich man who falls in love with a young musician, Nikhil Maheshwar. Despite her father's dislike, she falls deeply in love with Maheshwar. Later, Maheshwar goes back to get the consent of his parents for their marriage, but never returned. Mary keeps waiting for him. While rehearsing the play, Vishal interferes at certain occasions and changes parts of the story.

On the first night after his arrival, as he is composing a song for the play, he hears a beautiful melodic composition from the tape record near him. He turns it off, but the music continues playing, as if from nowhere. He realizes that it is the same symphony that was heard from the Seven Bells instrument for which he was expelled from the college. The next day, as the rehearsal progresses, in a scene where Mary expresses her love to Maheshwar, Vishal suggests that they replace the name Mary with Aleena which he intuitively deduces from the music he heard last night.

At night, Vishal is woken by the same music. He follows it and finds that it is coming from the chapel where the Seven Bells is kept. He immediately rushes there to see who is playing it. He sees nobody but the instrument playing by itself. Hearing the music, Angelina also gets there and sees Vishal sitting in front of the Bells. She accuses him again of playing it and tries to get him out of the college, but Vishal decides to stay and find out the truth.

Vishal asks the principal about the name Nikhil Maheshwar. He says that it was from an old love poem written by Angelina. Looking for answers, he visits an old priest who was the former pincipal of the college and who knew Angelina from a young age. He tells Vishal that her actual name is Aleena. She got the Seven Bells instrument from her father William Ignatius as a gift. William also brought someone from Agra to play the instrument. His name was Maheshwar (Vineeth Kumar). Aleena's admiration of Maheshwar's music turned to love, to her father's protest. Then after six years, Maheshwar left promising that he would return, but never came back.

Vishal searches for books about the Seven Bells in the college library. He finds a piece of paper with some musical notations from an old book. He feels that it was written by Maheshwar. Trying to play it on the instrument, he recognizes it as the same music he hears at night, when suddenly he feels like he is losing his vision. By intuition, he concludes that Maheswar was blind. He goes to Angelina and shows the music to her. She admits that it was created by Maheshwar and she wrote it down. She now realizes that Vishal was innocent of the accusation for which he was expelled from college.

At night, when Vishal is sitting in front of the Seven Bells, Sneha (Vijayalakshmi), the student who plays role of Aleena in the play and who is a fan of Vishal's music comes to the chapel and requests him to play the bells. Vishal reveals the truth that it is not he who plays the instrument but some invisible person.

Vishal dreams about a horse carriage and when he tells it to Angelina, she brings Vishal to see the old carriage in which she used to take Maheshwar out. There he meets Alberto (Murali), William's old stableman. Vishal feels something mysterious about Alberto. Vishal goes to the library again to find more books about the Seven Bells, but he finds a human skeleton in a glass case. He is told by the principal that it was the workers who got it when they dug the soil for laying the foundation for a new hostel block.

Vishal finds out from Alberto that Maheswar was buried alive by him and Aleena's father William, right after which Alberto dies. The skeleton in the library is Maheshwar's. When Vishal tells Sneha that he cannot let Aleena know about the truth, the Seven Bells starts playing violently. Aleena now understands and she goes to the library hall where the skeleton is kept. Vishal tries to stop her but he is unable to do so. At the end, they find Aleena dead and two doves are seen outside, flying away .

Cast

• Mohanlal as Vishal Krishnamoorthy
• Jayapradha as Madam Angelina Ignatius / Aleena
• Vijayalakshmi as Sneha
• Vineeth Kumar as Nikhil Maheshwar
• Murali as Alberto
• Jagathy Sreekumar as Priest
• Janardhanan as Principal
• Jagadish as Ithakk
• Joice Nadakapadom as Joy
• Sharath Das as Manoj
• Lena as Annie Kurian
• Dhanya Menon
• Kitty as William Ignatius, Aleena's father
• Vishnu Bhuvanendran as violinist

Soundtrack

The film's songs were composed by Vidyasagar and all lyrics were penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri (except the Tyagaraja song "Entharo Mahanu"). The traditional Tyagaraja song "Entharo Mahanu" was re-mixed with a western classical composition for the film.^[1] Vidyasagar won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Music Director for the film. The soundtrack was released by the music label Satyam Audios.^[2]

All music composed by Vidyasagar.

Accolades

See also

• List of Malayalam horror films

References

External links

• Devadoothan on IMDb