AKA: Nallu Pennungal
Year: 2007
Country: INDIA
Language: Malayalam
Subtitles: not available
Genre: Drama, Award winning
Director: Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Cast: Padma Priya,Geethu Mohandas,Manju Pillai,Nandita Das,Kavya Madhavan,Sreejith Ravi,Manoj K.Jayan, Nandhulal,Mukesh,Murali,Ravi Vallathol
Plot/Synopsis
“Four Women” is a 2007 Malayalam anthology film produced and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan based on four short stories written by the great Indian writer Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.
The movie chronicles a journey of womanhood across assorted backdrops with a classic amalgamation of source matters and techniques that splendidly spans times and frames. The movie has four distinct parts - each adapted from separate short stories.
1) The Prostitute
2) The Virgin
3) The Housewife
4) The Spinster
Each of the parts narrates the stories of women from different strata of the society. Though the stories are not explicitly connected in narration, a pattern emerges in the flow of the movie - both in the chronological setting and the stature of the women. Adoor Gopalakrishnan won the National Film Award for Best Directing, for the film.
As deeply rooted as they are in the soil and soul of his native Kerala, Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s films speak to universal truths. None does this more than Four Women.
In four parts, Gopalakrishsnan's Four Women delves into the stories of four women, each representing an archetype – The Virgin, The Prostitute, The Housewife and The Spinster.
Each woman struggles with and against the role that society assigns her.
The former prostitute believes she has found an honorable (if humble) life, only to discover she cannot simply walk away from her past.
The young bride was uneager to marry is scandalized when her husband abandons her without performing his husbandly duties.
A woman finds herself alone and out of prospects after suitor asks to marry her younger sister instead.
Another must decide if she must commit adultery with suave old flame, or face a life of childlessness with her husband.
Though the stories told with exquisite attention to particular time and place, Gopalakrishnan masterfully builds the themes toward the universal.
Selected Awards
1) 2008 Official Selection, Seattle Int’l Film Festival
2) Official Selection, Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
3) 2007 Masters Section, Toronto Int’l Film Festival
4) 2009 Vancouver New Asia Film Festival
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Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzEFLZ704OE
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Technical Details
Video
Duration: 01:40:48
Frame size: 640 X 352
Data rate: 837 kbps
Total bitrate: 965 kbps
Frame rate: 29 frames/second
Audio
Bit Rate:128 kbps
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Audio sample rate: 48 kHz
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