karuthamma

Another village story venture by Bharathiraja, with 2 new female faces. Music by A.R.Rahman.
The story outlines the lives of females in villages. For centuries female babies have been killed because of how much financial burden they carry along. Although they address a female baby as Goddess Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) is born, the rites and rituals, once she grows up makes her more of a burden, than of a joy.
As a girl, she is not able to carry the name of her father (only a male can do that), as after marriage, she carries the name of her husband. When she comes of age, there are rites and rituals to complete that announcement to the locality. Now the family honour is on her shoudlers and she has to be very careful with her virginity and things like that. When she is to be married, the girl's father takes the entire expense of the marriage and is supposed to give off dowry (varadakshanai), in act to welcome the groom to their family. And after the marriage, she has the responsibility to produce male heirs to keep her husband's family name running. If not, there is the evil mother - in - law (who is usually her aunt) to keep her on her toes. And all of this, she has to carry while matching a man's labour in anything that her father was doing (before marriage) and then her husband would be doing (after marriage).
It is indeed pretty scary how the plight of women was many years back. If urbanization and some westernization hadn't happened, much of the women's plight today would have been the same.
Mr. Mukkasaamy already has 2 daughters and his wife is pregnant with the third, in his bid to get a male heir. When the baby ends up a female, he tells the midwife to kill it. While the midwife is doing that, she is stopped by a teacher, who was tranferred to the village in his job. He decides to bring up the baby, since he has none of his own.
Mukka's wife dies and he brings up his daughters, Vani and Karuthamma. Then marries off the elder one, Vani to his nephew, Thavasi. His nephew and sister are unreasonable and constantly beat up Vani to go back home and get financial favours. Mukka gets as much as possible, while increasing his loan to high amounts.
Just like the teacher who was tranferred to the village, years later, a veterinary doctor, Stefan, is sent to the village. After some minor accidents and tricks, he ends up loving Karuthamma and she in return.
Vani has 2 daughters so far and is expecting the third would be a boy. As fate would have it, it is a girl and her mother - in - law tells her to kill the baby, but she revolts and tries to escape with the baby. Thavasi beats her brutally and she dies. He and his mother kill the baby girl and then make it seem as though Vani's death was a suicide.
Karuthamma is hearbroken and as she prepares Vani for the funeral, suspects that her husband and aunt have actually killed her. She complains to the police and they are arrested.
Meanwhile, the rest of the family spends some calming good time. Stefan's childhood friend, Rosie arrives from the city to visit him and the village. She loves Stefan but Stefan doesn't see her in that light. She builds an affectionate rapport with Karuthamma after she saves Mukka (not knowing he is her actual father) and other incidents.
When Thavasi and his mother are released, they torture the rest of the family. Situation builds up to a point where Karuthamma is fixed in marriage with him. She is devastated, but agrees to the marriage hoping she can take care of her sister's children.
Climax was predictable, but it was a repeat of a scene from Bharathiraja's previous movie, mudhal mariyaathai. It was an OK movie - not too bogged down by excessive village nonsense. The atrocities were shown well. Rahman's songs were awesome - then merkka paruva kaatru and poraalae ponnu thaayi were the good ones amidst all. The irritating bit was a song that was sung by some similar counterpart of paravai Muniamma. These ladies might have good knowledge of songs in the village, but they need to be less cacophonous and more in tune.