deepa mehta – water

Last night E and I saw Water, the third installment in a trilogy of somewhat controversial films directed by Deepa Mehta. Outlining the circumstances faced by widows in Hindu culture, the film is set in India the late 1930s and early 1940s, a time period frought with growing backlash against long-standing tradition and culminating in the revolution against Britain and the arrival of Mahatma Ghandi.

In Indian culture, widows are apparently believed to become half dead themselves on the death of their husband, with whom they become unified through marriage, and are left with options limited to burning themselves in the funeral pyre or taking a vow of self-denial. Those choosing the latter are often thrust into ashrams, isolated with other cast-off widows, and sold into prostitution. Remarriage is considered sinful, the remainder of life is lived on the bottom of the socio-religious food chain. The film opens with a quote from the Laws of Manu, one of the Hindu sacred texts, relating that women unfaithful during marriage or the widowed period are promised their rebirth in the womb of a jackal.

Though this attitude has begun to change in the larger Indian cities, these conditions are evidently still rampant, especially in rural villages. While this is one of the many other-cultural norms that we in America see as being odd at best and deplorable at worst, it struck me while I was watching that parallels can be drawn between this situation and Americans using oddball antiquated Biblical scripture to justify bigotry toward homosexuality, or the parallels between the violence perpetuated by fringe fundamentalist Islam and the abortion clinics bombed domestically in the name of God.

I did some reading on the director and the firestorms surrounding her releases, filming for Water actually began in 2000 but was halted due to extreme opposition from Hindu fundamentalists, and only secretly resumed in Sri Lanka this past year. During the opening of Fire, which tells the story of two Hindu women who fall in love with each other, the theater screening the film was burned to the ground.

Definitely one of the better films I’ve seen in months, I just added Earth and Fire to my Netflix queue. Regardless of the grounds on which people stir the pot, I’ve always been drawn to the ones that do the stirring.