NALLU PENNUGAL (FOUR WOMEN)

MIAAC 2008 Film Festival
Director: Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Language: Malayalam

Synopsis: Four Women is four short films, joined together only by a credit sequence and separated only by title cards. The short stories by Thakazhy Shivashankar Pillai on which they are based are well known in India and appear to have been literally transposed onto the screen. It works because thematically they are all similar – women’s reactions, to the choices the men in their lives make. The first story “The Prostitute” is emphatically grounded in 1946, perhaps because it’s such a relief to think that this is not happening today. In the first story, the young prostitute of the title is able to change profession when a young laborer falls in love with her, only for her to learn how hard it is to change reputations when you’re still living on the same patch of sidewalk. “The Virgin” is about a business-savvy young woman whose parents arrange a match with a man whose reputation in business is her equal. But no one expects how his business skills affect their marriage (although the title provides a hint). In “The Housewife,” a loving married couple has come to terms with the loss of their children to early deaths, until the wife’s old boyfriend, a father of eight, hears of their misfortunes and proposes a solution. In the final story, In “The Spinster,” a family’s oldest sister (Nandita Das) must cope with the ramifications when her suitor decides to marry her younger sister instead.