Set in South India in the Twenties, The Ritual describes the ostracism of a young woman who transgresses the rigid sexual code of the orthodox brahmin society. The style is deceptively simple in telling the story of Yamuna, a child widow living with her father in the ecclesiastical school which he runs. Seduced and made pregnant by the teacher of the local government school, Yamuna attempts suicide but is rescued by a young student of her father's with whom she has a deep bond of affection. She agrees to an abortion - equally suicidal, for, though she survives, she is left in pain and is made an outcast by her own father, who performs a funeral rite for his still-living daughter. In this rite, an earthen pot, symbol of fertility, is broken. Clearly an indictment of the cruelty to women which is embedded in the religious tradition, the film is replete with circular motifs (which, in Tantric philosophy, signify the womb), and closes with the father preparing to offer up his second daughter - aged 16 - to a marriage with a 50-year-old man.
Girish Kasaravalli is one of several filmmakers to emerge from the state of Karnataka, with the Kannada new wave. Though his films have shown internationally, his goal - to show the films commercially in the rural areas about whose people their stories are woven - has not been achieved; screening such films in rural areas is considered a commercial risk by distributors.