Samsaram Athu Minsaram (1986)

Visu’s caste-conscious urban middle-class family drama. Here he plays Ammaiyappa Mudaliar, a salaried employee with a wife, a daughter and three sons, making for four couples in a single household. The daughter, who aspires to a measure of freedom in her marriage, is contrasted with an obediently traditional daughter-in-law (Laxmi). The story approves of Christian-Hindu marriage, clearly features caste identities (e.g. the troubleshooter figure of the servant Kannamma, played brilliantly by Manorama) and refuses to hide reactionary family ideologies under a progressive cloak. Manorama, the legendary Tamil comedienne, had debuted in the 1950s and has reputedly done over a thousand Tamil films. This film was remade in Hindi as Sansar (T. Rama Rao, 1987) with Aruna Irani in the role. The major hit extended the AVM studio’s successes into the 80s.