Monday, October 5, 2009

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.


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