Elipathayam (1981)

A dissertation on the collapse of the joint family system in Kerala, this is perhaps Adoor's most talked of work.

The head of a joint family lives, with two younger sisters, in the ancestral home. His elder sister is a grasping harpy, out to get everything she can squeeze out of the family; the middle one is a doormat, content to eschew all claims to personal happiness and stay unwed to do her brother's every bidding; the youngest is a product of the age, defiant of convention, hard-headed, practical.

As laws and governmental regulations whittle away the landholdings, as the economic structure that once lent strength to the tharavad changes, the head of the family finds himself incapable of confronting a changing world; he thrashes around in the rat-trap of change and gradually slips over the line, into the deep well of paranoia bordering on insanity.

Starring: Karamana Janardhanan Nair, Sarada, Jalaja, Soman, Balan K Nair and others

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