General Pictures

A young man narrates two conflicting accounts of his life, changing the details and incidents in both, as he slowly approaches madness.

A young artist lives with his father, a radical friend and music loving young woman. His father dies, the radical friend leaves him and the woman is taken away by her family to another city.

The film interprets a story from the Uttara Kanda of the epic poem Ramayana, where Rama sends his wife, Sita, to the jungle to satisfy his subjects. Sita is never actually seen in the film, but her virtual presence is compellingly evoked in the moods of the forest and the elements. The film retells the epic from a womens' liberationist perspective, and is about the tragedy of power and the sacrifices that adherence to dharma demands, including abandoning a chaste wife.

Esthappan is a fisherman, who lives in a seashore colony. His story unfolds through narrations by other fishermen about his miraculous acts. Through the contradictory statements of these people, a mystical figure of Esthappan unfolds.

The arrival of a travelling circus sends ripples through the inhabitants of a remote Keralan village.

Unni is the last male heir of a decaying feudal family in rural Kerala. His inability to accept the socio-economic changes of a new society causes him to gradually withdraw into isolation and paranoia.

A stranger who may be the trickster magician Kummatty comes to a village in Malabar, India.

Susamma, who was raised by her maternal uncle after the death of her mother, joins the Indian Army as a nurse during WWII. She experiences many ups and downs, but stays true to her profession.

Set in Nainital, Manju is about Vimala Devi, a teacher in a boarding school, who waits in hope for the winter of her discontent to vanish. Another important character is Buddhu, who waits for his Englishman father to return to Nainital. Loneliness and endless waiting are recurring motifs in the film.

The film starts in the early 1950s showing Sreedharan, the protagonist, as a very popular communist leader and trade union activist. He is forced to go underground after his name was associated with the murder of the owner of a tile factory. He is considered to be dead by his party and they even erect a memorial for him. But he makes an unexpected comeback almost 10 years later, after the first communist ministry gained and lost power in Kerala and after the Communist Party of India has split. On his return, he spends his time sleeping and drinking. His come back is first a puzzle and then an embarrassment to his comrades and family. As the disappointment on his new face grows, he is found murdered. The film ends when both the communist parties jointly celebrate his martyrdom.