Naalu Pennungal
Adoor's latest is a story retold with restraint about the struggles of women within Kerala homes between the 1940s and ’60s.
The film doesn’t have a typical plotline. Its hallmark is realism, based on four short stories by Jnanpith awardee Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. As if to atone for the few women in his other films, Adoor portrays the Woman through different shades here—the prostitute (Padmapriya) who quits the streets for a live-in relationship, the virgin (Geetu Mohandas) briefly wedded to a moron-glutton and being slandered about, the zealously chaste childless homemaker (Manju Pillai) and the spinster or eternal virgin (Nandita Das), who is witness to the ephemeral joys of her sisters and yet allows herself to be the template of their lives.
Each role offers a paradox of freedom and bondage in nearly equal measure. However, the lingering image is that of Nandita Das, whose younger sister marries before her, sealing her spinsterhood. She later moves in with her sister and husband, which makes the sister more possessive about her man. Finally, she resolves to live alone.
M.J. Radhakrishan’s cinematography lets the characters play out scenes instead of prodding their movements.
The plot revolves around four women—how each of them from different social strata would react to similar circumstances. They are juxtaposed against men who are helpless, flirtatious, impotent or gluttonous. It’s against them that they seek to survive and do so with perhaps better poise. They try to break free from an exploitative stranglehold of families or social circumstances but realise limits to their freedom.
"I’ve tried to be as true to the story as possible, capturing their lives very minutely. I take ideas out of a story and take off from there, allowing it a certain kind of organic growth. It is not a question of being faithful to the original. Then it will only be bad copy of the work," says Adoor.
This was evident at the Toronto Festival. During the Q&A, it was the women folk who pointed out that situations in the film were not exotic but universal and commonplaced. But the home crowd is yet to announce a verdict.
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Courtesy: Film Information
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