Director: Poomani
Cast: Nasser, Radhika, Charlie, Sonia, Thalivasal Vijay.

While most film makers play safe, opting for tales of vendetta or romance, debutant film maker Poomani dares to be different. May be because Poomani is basically a writer with social awareness. The film works at two levels. At one level, it depicts the tragedy in the life of a rural family, struggling to eke out a living. The father is a good-for-nothing, lazy, an alcoholic. The mother somehow tries to make ends meet. The two daughters are persuaded by the father to take up jobs in the match factory. Their little brother feels desolate going to school alone. The eldest daughter, dreaming of a better life, elopes with a co-worker, an upper caste youth. Her mother unable to bear the taunts of the neighbours, commits suicide. And when the youth is forcibly taken away by his people, the girl too ends her life.

At a deeper level, the film is about human poverty and greed, the exploitation of a situation by interested parties, like the match factory owner. And above all, the pathetic exploitation of children, who are forced to work long hours in dismal  surroundings. Starting their day before sunrise and ending it after sunset. Images of little children trudging with tiny tiffin boxes in their hands, the ominous sound of the bus horn ('a second cock has started crowing in our village' remarks someone). And the final scene of the little girl and her brother half nodding in sleep, shivering in the cold and making their way to the bus -- all paint a sad, realistic picture.

Radhika's expressions -- as she watches her elder daughter leave home all dressed up, intuitively suspecting what she is up to -- speak volumes. It's a serious film, more in the award winning category, a film for a discerning viewer.