Navalokam (1951)

A ruthless estate owner, Kuruppu (Nair), sparks off a revolt among his labourers over his callous seduction and discarding of Devaki (Kumari). The woman, who has an independent reputation for her social work, allows her husband to be arrested on charges of assault, but eventually comes to his rescue, and also reconciles differences between the employer and his workers. The film combined the stage and film talents introduced by Koshy- Kunchako productions into Malayalam (cf. Jeevitha Nauka the same year) with major figures from the radical literary movements in Kerala, writer Varkey and lyricist Bhaskaran. Despite its stagey effects, including crammed studio interiors, emphasis on dialogue and on entries and exits, the film is seen as the first in Malayalam to shift away from mythologicals and into politically informed realism. Its extension of traditional melodramatic forms, adapted from Tamil and Telugu cinema, to address e.g. industrialisation and class conflict, was to prove an important generic precedent for Kariat’s films.