Aval

aka She 1967 142’ b&w Malayalam d Aziz p Mohammed Sarkar pc Beena Films s Thoppil Bhasi lyr Vyalar Rama Varma c Ravi Varma m P. Devarajan lp Usha Nandini, Madhu, K.P. Oomer, Adoor Bhasi, Bahadur, Kothamangalam Ali, Ramchand, Maya, Meena, Shanta, Baby Waheeda, Kaduvakulam Anthony, Krishnan Kutty, Shanta Devi

Bizarre Bhasi melodrama about sexual impotence, divorce and a social system that is shown as riddled with incestuous relationships. Sridevi (Usha Nandini) becomes a schoolteacher in a remote village in the mountains, where a widower falls in love with her. This leads to a long story in flashback, where she tells him about how she was betrayed by her lover (Madhu). It appears that her brother had rejected his sister, and in retaliation he does the same to her. She marries a second man even through she is pregnant by her first lover. Her new husband turns out to be sexually impotent. When she delivers her child, she is told that it is dead, but the child survives and is adopted by its biological father. In the end she has to choose between her duties to her new husband and her maternal desire to raise her own child. The problem is solved by the generosity of her husband who accepts her with her baby. This film was the debut of former FTII student Aziz, at this time a member of an informal collective.

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