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Mannu
aka The Soil 1978 134’ col Malayalam d K.G. George pc Susmitha Prod. s/lyr Dr M.K. Pavithran c K. Ramchandra Babu m A.T. Oomer lp Soman, Sharada, P.K. Abraham, Adoor Bhasi, Kuthiravattom Pappu, Nellikode Bhaskaran, Nilambur Balan, Sukumaran, Mallika, Shanta Devi
George returned to the idiom of his mentor, Kariat, in this strident feudal melodrama of greed and superstition. The poor Damu (Soman) gets into a legal fight, supported by a CPI activist (Bhaskaran), with the rapacious landlord Krishnan Nair (Abraham) over tenancy rights. The matter takes a religious turn when the landlord announces his decision to build a temple on Damu’s land. Damu kills the landlord and goes into hiding. The film shifts the moral dilemma to the son of the landlord (Sukumaran), a patriotic army officer who has to decide whether to continue the ancestral dispute: the officer makes peace with Damu and his wife (Sharada).