Murappennu (1965)

A relentless joint family melodrama about the social impotence of righteous people. Balan (Nazir) is mercilessly exploited and defrauded by his uncle (Anthony), his cousin and his own brother, even as he dutifully looks after his mother and teenage sister. He sacrifices his own love for Bhagi (Sharada), the daughter of his uncle, so that a complicated (but not unusual) arrangement with the evil uncle can result in Bhagi marrying the hero’s younger brother, in return for a marriage between his sister and the uncle’s son. However, the uncle’s son betrays Balan’s sister at the last minute. Balan, forced to borrow money for a dowry, is too late to prevent his sister from committing suicide. The end leaves him an utterly defeated man. This was one of novelist Vasudevan Nair’s first major scripts, adapting to the cinema his well-known literary format of the hero caught in a vicious but declining feudal system. It was also the debut of his long-term association with director Vincent, creating a distinct brand of melodrama as social critique in Malayalam.