Four Women (Naalu Pennungal)
Drama | India | 2007 | 105m 
Director: Adoor Gopalakrishnan)
Language: Malalylam + English subtitles
Produced by Adoor Gopalakrishnan Productions and Emil & Eric Digital Films Pvt. Ltd.
The film distills to a rare purity four tales of village women in south India. In each, a woman submits to a role society decides for her. Each role offers a paradox of freedom and bondage in nearly equal measure.
Synopsis
This film is the story of four women from Kuttanad in Alappuzha district in Kerala. The time is set in the years between 1940s to the 1960s and based on the short stories of well-known Malayalam writer Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.
The four titles are elemental: “The Prostitute,” “The Virgin,” “The Housewife” and “The Spinster.” The prostitute gives up her profession for marriage, but is unable to prove her new status to the police. The virgin is married to a man from another village, but he takes everything from her except the one thing that was rightfully his. The housewife has difficulty conceiving, and an old friend offers himself as a surrogate stud. The spinster moves in with her sister and brother-in-law, but the arrangement causes more problems than it solves.
“Four Woman is a special film in all disciplines of the cinematic art form, whether you watch the film as an onlooker…., a passer-by who hears about the incident, or an active participant …. each and every form would in turn be special, because of the universal appeal this films holds……… – Nitesh Rohit, Cinema Without Borders
Selected Awards
2008 Official Selection, Seattle Int’l Film Festival
Official Selection, Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
2007 Masters Section, Toronto Int’l Film Festival
The Filmmaker
ADOOR GOPALAKRISHNAN (Director / Producer)
Adoor Gopalakrishnan was born in Kerala, India in 1941 into a family that patronized Kathakali and other performing arts. Graduating from the Film Institute of India in 1965 with specialization in Screenplay writing and Advanced Film Direction, he pioneered the film society movement in Kerala. The same year, he took the initiative to form India’s first film co-operative for production, distribution and exhibition of quality films.
Adoor is considered one of the most important Indian directors in the modern Indian cinema. All his films have been shown in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, London, Rotterdam and every important festival around the world. In 2002, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington honoured him by holding a complete retrospective of his work. Other major retrospectives of his films include those at the Cinematheque in Paris, La Rochelle, Pesaro, Lincoln Centre- New York, etc. Tributes and homage at Cinematheque, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cleveland Cinematheque, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Denver Film Festival, Festival of Manosque etc.
In recognition of his contribution to international cinema, the French Government has bestowed on him the title of ‘‘The Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters’ a top French honour for culture (2005). In 2006 he received the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, India’s highest national honour for life-time achievement in cinema. The same year Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala conferred on him the honorary degree of D. Litt. He has recently received India’s top civilian award, Padma Vibhushan, for his contribution to the Arts (Cinema).
Six of his films have won FIPRESCI prizes: Face to Face (84), Monologue (87), The Walls (90), The Servile (94), Man of the Story (96) and Shadow Kill (02). Four Women (07) is his most recent film.
