Water

One of the more common and logical ways of putting out fire is using water. Well, that’s exactly what Deepa Mehta (affluent Indian born Canadian film director) did for her next movie. After receiving endless accolades for her last two movies (Fire and Earth) she took up the task of completing the elements of her trilogy by directing Water. Set in 1938 when India was under the rule of the British Raj, the story throws light on a group of widows condemned to spend their entire lives in seclusion and reclusion due to the rigid system of the Hindu Law. Shot on the banks of the holy river, the Ganges, the movie incorporates themes that are relevant even to this day as India finds herself torn between conflicting ideas of Hindu traditions and modern attitudes. The director divulges the atrocities widows are subjected to due to the age old Hindu ideologies that decent from the Holy texts.

Mehta’s movie constantly refers back to the rules of widowhood during the pre-independence era that mostly revolves around economic, social and cultural deprivation: restrictive dress codes, detachment from worldly pleasures (materialistic things, fried food, music and dance) and sexual exploitation. India’s reaction to Water wasn’t that different from their reaction to her former movie Fire.

The film was beautiful, shot by the cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, who has worked with Mehta on "Fire," "Earth," and also on an episode of "Indiana Jones chronicle." Canadian composer Mychael Danna ("Monsoon Wedding") provides the background score, while Bollywood’s top musician A.R. Rahman composed the songs for the film. Unlike most Bollywood films, the songs in "Water" are not jarring; instead, they help in the progression of the story.

The movie had been sold in 57 countries and released in 25, with close to $14 million in worldwide ticket sales. It was finally scheduled to open theatrically in India on March 9 2007. Mehta had originally intended to direct Water in February, 2000, however, just two days into the shooting the movie, rioting Hindu nationalists in India shut down her set by destroying and burning the main film set and throwing the remnants into the Ganges. According to an article in the New York Times published a day after the riots, Rick McCallum, co-producer of Star Wars was quoted saying, "This is a problem of people acting fanatically – not sitting back, taking a deep breath and trying to figure out what the real issues are and what the film is about." Finally, the director was able to resume making the movie but to avoid any additional problems; she used an entirely different cast and a false title (River Moon) taking her a total of 11 years to direct the movie and weathering an endless barrage of death threats and lawsuits.

All in the movie did well worldwide receiving awards such as Golden Kinnaree Award at the Bangkok International Film Festival for best film and the Silver Mirror Award at Festival Films from the South in Oslo for best film. Additionally it was nominated for best foreign language film, making it Canada's first non-French Canadian film to receive a nomination in that category and an NBR (national board of review) for freedom of expression.

Fired up!

Deepa Mehta, a prominent film director has not only become the voice of new India but has also become one of the most controversial and sought-after directors in the film industry. Described as "Canada's most internationally renowned woman film-maker" (Levitin, An Introduction..., p 273) she was born in 1950 in Amritsar, a city on India's border with Pakistan. She embarked her film career as a screenwriter for children’s films and gradually, made her mark in the world for directing the trilogy- “Fire”, “Earth” and “Water”.

Her brilliant depiction of rural India’s obsolete customs and traditions combined with themes such as lesbianism (Fire), racism and the divide between India and Pakistan (Earth) has shaken India to its core. Although the movies were the talk of the town in both Canada and the United States, it left India speechless.

The movie Fire, revolves around two women (Radha and Sita), suffocated and suppressed by the customary Indian traditions of fulfilling the duties of an ideal Indian housewife, break the barriers of their heterosexual unions and lurk over to the other side in hopes of finding solace, freedom and pleasure.

The movie received most of its recognition due to the controversies it stirred amongst the Hindu fundamentalists who were successful in banning the movie from the theaters altogether. The movie was first passed uncut by the India’s censor board in May 1998 with a rating of ‘A’ (adult) only on the condition that the protagonist’s name is changed from Sita to Nita. The success of the movie attracted the attention of the Hindu fundamentalist group- Shiv Senas. Reports suggested two hundred of them stormed a Cinemax theatre in suburban town in Mumbai smashed glass panes, burned posters and compelled the managers to refund the tickets to the public

The 1999 edition of the Human Rights Watch World Report notes: "In December 1998, the award-winning film Fire, by director Deepa Mehta, was recalled from theatres after Shiv Sena (Hindu fundamentalist group) activists vandalized at least fifteen cinemas where it was playing.” However, the more interesting part to note is that the Shiv Sena said there would have been no objection to the lesbian relationship if the women were Muslim. To put this in a more western perspective, one could draw parallels with Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005), drawing controversy not so much because it featured a homosexual relationship, but rather because the homosexuals were cowboys, a fact which destabilized some cultural codes which, up until that point, would not have been the subject that kind of "attack" in the mainstream.

Soon, after much convincing, the Supreme Court allowed the movie to be re-released uncut in India which became a and it enjoyed a significant amount of acclaim both at home and overseas by whisking away awards such as the ‘Audience Award’ for its outstanding narrative feature in the L.A. Outfest and International Independent Award in the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film festival.