Naalu Pennungal (Four Women) (2007)

Geetu Mohandas, Manju Pillai, Nandita Das, Geethu Mohandas, Padmapriya

Diretor Adoor Gopalakrishnan crafts this minimalist but deeply humanistic drama separated into four episodes and detailing the experiences of four women whose noble efforts to improve their lives from... read more  within the restrained confines of a male-dominated society. Presented in four episodes and set in a rural area of India during the two decades between the 1940s and '60s, the film begins by telling the tragic tale of "The Prostitute." A young woman who relies on her body to survive makes the difficult decision to break away from a life of prostitution, only to find herself in trouble with the law after the fact. The second tale, entitled "The Virgin," follows a virtuous young girl who is promised by her father to a stranger, only to shoulder the blame for the failure of the relationship after her mate proves less than stable. "The Housewife" explores the decisions faced by a childless wife who encounters an amorous ex-classmate willing to give her the one thing she wants most in the world, and "The Spinster" focuses on the humiliation endured by an upper-middle-class girl (Nandita Das) after the groom she was arranged to marry decides to wed her younger sister instead. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi