 Being with the parallel stream of film making meant to many, to create complicated, sluggish films that rarely attract the general masses. Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the most hailed film maker from Kerala, on the other hand, is the rare name among the group whose films always depended on unsophisticated narratives to tell powerful themes. And so, his films always told uncomplicated, sensible plots, minus melodrama, clichés and an alternative non glamorous overkill which kept amusing enough to keep you in splits throughout. His latest flick ‘Naalu Pennungal’ also is continuing with his tradition of telling powerful theme structured with simplicity. It accounts the journey of womanhood across variegated backdrops; a classic translation of literature to the most possible movie narratives that splendidly stretches across frames and times. This film was premiered in Toronto and was shown in London to rave reviews .It has also been selected for the Indian panorama (International Film Festival of India) and for the competition section of International Film Festival of Kerala
Told poetically and uncompromisingly by most renounced director from Malayalam, ‘Naalu Pennungal’ is a based on four simple tales written in the early sixties by Thakazhy Siva Sankara Pillai. In this tribute to the great writer, Adoor recreates the sixties without leaving anything and tells the tale of four women, each coming from a different social stratum.
The amazing director has done once again something many veterans can't achieve -- he has followed one enduring story after another to deliver a dark but humanistic, sometimes sad, gripping and life-illumining film, of no parallels. Many would rate it as one of the year's best.
The first story titled 'Oru Niyamalankhanathinte Kadha' /The Prostitute' is grounded in the early independence period. Here the young prostitute Kunju Pennu (Padmapriya) who takes to prostitution for a living is suddenly able to change profession as Pappukutty (Sreejith Ravi) who falls in love with her decides to marry her. They tries their best to keep up with the societal norms of being a married couple but very soon find themselves caught up in an ironic violation of civil laws, as their claims as a married couple gets rejected on the grounds that Kunju Pennu was a women with ''loose morals''. What they realize in a short term of married life is that it is hard to change social reputations even if you try hard to present yourself more with a new face. Even in the court to prove themselves, the heroine here stands motionless, eyes down, allowing her husband to speak in her name as per the social norms of the time and supporting him with the warmth and the sense of togetherness even as they stand convicted in the fragile borders of morality.
The heroine in 'The Virgin' Kumari (Geethu Mohandas) is a young woman who looks after her parents, by working in the farmlands. Her parents arrange a match, with a man, Narayanan (Nandhu) whose reputation in earning and preserving money by running a shop is equal to her. ] As everyone expects a very good family life for the couple, Narayanan’s business skills and obsession with food with little liking for everything else including his wife, leaves Kumari in dire streets. Once left back to her home, Kumari starts life afresh, passing off her marriage as an unpleasant interlude that never did happened. Even though the character has very less dialogues, she is strong enough to be in par with the other female protagonists of the film.
 In 'Chinnu amma/The Housewife' a loving married couple (Manju Pillai and Murali) has come to terms with the loss of their children to early deaths, both thinking each other as the reason for the untimely losses. Chinnu amma now in her thirties doesn’t care for it any more until her old boyfriend, Narapillai, a father of eight children who has just came back from Tamil nadu , proposes a solution to take her to bed for a healthy offspring. Here Chinnu amma, in the very thought of jeopardy, show her strong character which is enough to protect herself against a sin that should not be committed.
In the final story, and of course, the best one ‘Nithya kanyaka/The Spinster,' a family's oldest sister (Nandita Das,) must cope with the consequences when her suitor decides to select her younger sister Subhadra (Kavya Madhavan) instead of her, to enter into matrimony. In a short span of time her fate even makes her witness her youngest sister married off and her mother passing way. Now left alone, she adjusts herself to become a lady who can live alone without support from anyone in the society.
Watching Naalu Pennungal/ Four women is as easy as reading four short stories which are joined together only by title cards. Each story, well narrated, never ever leave the viewers confused. Apart from being separate stories, they go over for a peripheral connection with themes that displays how the choices made by women about the men in their life affect them. And in the film, the director takes a safest route where most men in the families are shown as humanitarian gentle men, but the other men these women come up against in their lives are more intimidating. Even as the stories are set 60 years ago, Adoor's women remain fixed with establishmentarian attitude, never trying marginally to move away from the firm boundaries that have been complicatedly drawn around them by the society.
As the film moves on from one story to another, the women portrayed draws themselves in strength to strength to become totally independent in the end, who even shuns the emotional calls from the weakest of the opposite sex. And through the soft sexual under tones that hover over the narratives, acts of female courage and assertiveness render the deep-rooted notion voiceless that woman are a synonym for submission. Even being not audacious in society doesn’t not deprive the protagonists to question the prepared mould of womanhood as a passive wife, spinster or daughter.
After watching the film, the first thing I realized was the pin-drop silence among the audience as they filed out, an obvious hangover of pondering out the associations between the different women of the moving drama. In another typical Adoor pacing of the plots, questions persist long after the screen has turned dark and the theatre has emptied. Excellent performances by the whole team stand out, especially as the camera by M J Radhakrishnan shuns slickness and sentimentality. From the lot who made the film a real like experience, the pick is Padma Priya and Nandita Das, both much accomplished and seasoned actors who throw in a range of emotions for a perfect ten.
'Naalu Pennungal' will be a really different and unforgettable experience for the viewers who have been seeing dry, stale, meaningless stuff in the name of cinema.
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