Krishnadas Murali did not exactly take the safest route with Bharathanatyam 2 Mohiniyattam. Instead of repeating the warm, feel-good tone of Bharathanatyam, the filmmaker pushed the franchise into darker, more absurd territory while still retaining the emotional familiarity that audiences connected with in the first film.
What has surprised Krishnadas even more, however, is the overwhelming response the film has received since it started streaming on Netflix. According to the filmmaker, audiences have been obsessively dissecting scenes, decoding hidden meanings and discovering references he never consciously intended in the first place. “Even things we never intended are being interpreted in different ways,” he says with a laugh.
In this conversation, Krishnadas speaks about how the sequel unexpectedly emerged after the first instalment’s OTT success, balancing dark humour with family sensibilities, building the film’s fake temple scam mythology, casting choices, organically weaving in pop-culture references within the narrative, and whether the Bharathanatyam universe could expand further in the future.
Excerpts:
Did you always have a sequel to Bharathanatyam in your mind?
No, not at all. After Bharathanatyam found a second life through OTT, producer Thomas (Thiruvalla) chettan and Saiju (Kurup) chettan called me for discussions. Initially, I didn’t even want to do a sequel. Bharathanatyam was a very small film, but OTT gave it a huge identity despite its theatrical failure. I didn’t want to cash in on that success or rehash my earlier work just because it had suddenly become popular.
But later, I started thinking that revisiting those characters in a completely different tonal space could make for an interesting theatrical experience. At the time, I was also writing a dark humour story about a dysfunctional rural family trying to hide a dead body. Bharathanatyam already had this element of people hiding things from the outside world, so I thought of merging those worlds together.
Then random scenes began popping into my head. One of them was Kala chechi’s (Kalaranjini) character casually saying, “Body ‘ithupole’ kondupovaathirunna pore?” (“What if we just don’t move the body ‘like this?’”). The absurdity of a mother casually saying something so grotesque instantly excited me.
Audiences emotionally adopted the family from Bharathanatyam. Was it difficult to place them in such a dark story?
That was our biggest tension. Initially, we approached the material in a much more raw way, with heightened violence and all. But then we realised that, despite wanting a wider audience, we were still catering to the family audience that loved these characters. We didn’t want to alienate them, so we intentionally toned down many of the violent scenes during the scripting stage. There’s barely any blood shown on screen. We wanted the darkness to come through humour and awkwardness rather than graphic violence.
Mohiniyattam primarily revolves around a fake temple scam, unlike in Bharathanatyam, where it was more of a side track...
Once we announced the title, people immediately began guessing completely different stories, especially theories involving a “third wife” angle and melodrama. So we thought of diverting expectations entirely. In Bharathanatyam, while the main track was about the family hiding the extra-marital affair, we also saw Saiju chettan’s character Sasi creating fake rituals around the temple. So we thought, what if his father was even more cunning in that sense, almost as if it was part of the DNA passed down? That’s how the idea of a fake temple and fabricated myth came about.
The fact that the mythological animation portions got passed through the censors was surprising, especially in today’s climate...
I was nervous too. But our approach helped. We intentionally designed those portions like children’s cartoons, such as Chhota Bheem or illustrated mythology books. We didn’t want hyper-realistic recreations because realism would increase the seriousness and possibly offend people. Instead, we wanted it to feel playful, cute, and funny. There’s very little dialogue, too. When something like that is presented in a cartoonish way, audiences process it differently. Even at the censor screening, once people started laughing, the tension disappeared.
One striking aspect of Mohiniyattam is how audiences end up rooting for this family despite the morally questionable dark things they do...
The key is emotional attachment. Audiences already liked this family from Bharathanatyam. So if we wanted viewers to continue supporting them despite their crimes, we needed another character they disliked even more. That’s why we worked heavily on Suraj ettan’s character. Initially, Govindaraja was written as much more cruel, including scenes where he physically abused his wife, but we eventually toned it down. We just wanted audiences to feel, “Okay, maybe this man deserved his fate.”
One of the biggest transformations in Mohiniyattam is Saraswathi’s, played by Kalaranjini. She’s far more liberated and absurd this time...
Honestly, I cast Kala chechi mainly because of her voice. Of course, everyone knows she’s a brilliant performer, but her voice fascinated me even more. If those dialogues had been spoken in a polished voice, they wouldn’t have landed the same way. Her voice has a natural texture and rhythm that automatically creates humour and emotion. When I first wrote the scene for the first part, where she asks Saiju chettan, “Ethu spirit il?”, I immediately thought how much fun it would be if Kala chechi said it. Some other names crossed my mind, too, but her voice had a lived-in quality that felt perfect.
The sequel expanded the cast with actors like Suraj Venjaramoodu, Baby Jean, Jagadish, Vinay Forrt, etc. Were these your first choices?
For Govindaraja, Suraj ettan was our first choice. For the new Subhash, Sangeeth Prathap was initially cast, but there were scheduling conflicts with two other films. I wanted an actor who would appeal to Gen Z audiences as this second Subash. Around that time, I saw Baby’s performance in Alappuzha Gymkhana, which really impressed me. I immediately imagined him as a young person in a rural setting.
Jagadish ettan’s casting happened in the final stages because, in the initial drafts, the family themselves were chopping up the body. But when Midhun (Manuel Thomas) chettan read the script, he suggested bringing in an external character. That’s how we created Eapen, the butcher. Coming to Vinay (Forrt) ettan, I love his dialogue meter. He has a very unique rhythm while speaking.
How much of the humour in Mohiniyattam was improvised?
Very little, actually. I don’t mind improvisation, but we usually establish the rhythm and tone beforehand. Even if individual jokes are funny, they should still belong to the world of the film. Sometimes, actors themselves come up with little gestures, like Saiju chettan and Abhiram (Radhakrishnan) chettan improvising that nod to Dasaratham. If I feel it blends naturally into the scene, I’ll immediately say yes. Otherwise, most of it was scripted already.
Mohiniyattam is full of references and callbacks to popular films. How do you integrate them without making them distracting?
Most references are used as storytelling tools rather than “Easter eggs”. For example, in the Subhash (Baby Jean) vs Subhash (Abhiram Radhakrishnan) bus stand sequence, we needed the audience to understand the power dynamic between the two characters immediately. So that 7aum Arivu reference and the staging choices helped communicate that visually.
Similarly, for the ‘Thaanoor chakka’ callback from Vesham with Jagadish ettan, we wanted the character to say something absurd enough, while Vinay chettan’s cop character still shouldn’t suspect him. References should organically help the storytelling, not distract from it.
After the success of Mohiniyattam, are you already thinking of another sequel?
We definitely didn’t expect a sequel while making Bharathanatyam. But once audiences accepted this world, we naturally began to think further. We do have a possible plot, genre, and ideas for the next part in mind. But whether it happens or not isn’t fully in our hands. This time, it was our need that the film had to bring people to theatres. If there’s enough public demand, maybe we’ll revisit these characters someday. As of now, I’m working on entirely different subjects.