Water
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Movie Reviews of Water
Movie Review: Have a Ladoo
Summary: 5 Stars
One of my greatest pleasures teaching my Introduction to the Religions of India, China, and Japan class is being able to introduce my students, whom have mainly had a steady diet of Hollywood blockbuster tripe, to a number of international films that truly raise the bar. For the India section of my class I tend to show Deepa Mehta's beautiful film Water (2005) which has left a number of my students in tears at the end of its near two hour duration.
Water opens in 1938 a time in which Indian Nationalists were at odds with the British to free their country. Gandhi was still in prison, but his release was imminent. However, tradition still held its strangle hold upon the country, and Brahmin widows were often sent to live in ashrams where they would live on a scant one meal a day, beg for money, and live in near abject poverty. Water focuses on the nine-year-old Chuyia whose husband has just passed away. Not yet old enough to fully comprehend that she is marries, let alone that she is to live her life in an ashram away from the ones she loves, the young girl puts up quite a fight against the widows at the ashram, particularly the obese, manipulative Madhumati. However, she does find some kindness in the figure of Shakuntala, but mainly she strikes up a friendship with the beautiful Kalyani whose hair remains long, unlike the other widows, because she is a prostitute whose beauty and body helps keep the ashram afloat.
One day when Kalyani's dog escapes Chuyia, she runs after him and meets Narayan who has caught the dog. Helping Chuyia find Kalyani, the scholarly nationalist Narayan falls instantly in love with Kalyani. However, although her attraction to Narayan is mutual, can Kalyani overcome her past and a deep, turgid tradition that keeps individuals locked in place?
I have read articles that have called Deepa Mehta a self-hating Hindu because of her attitudes toward her religion in her films, especially her elemental trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water, but as one can readily see in this film that she also appreciates the beauty of India's traditions. The problem is the unwillingness of those in power to lessen tradition to allow people to grow. A beautiful albeit depressing film, Water is not to be missed by fans of not only Indian films, but by film fans in general.
Movie Review: Lives of widows in India
Summary: 5 Stars
Courageous and feminist film from Deepa Mehta about women in India who are widows. Although based in the distant past (1938) when Ghandi was rising to power in his peaceful resistance to the British occupation there, film concludes in its postscriipt that in present times, there are almost 32 million widows in India today living under similar circumstances. Film is focused on the young 7-year old girl who arrives to ashram when her husband passes away. Since she was promised to him since her birth, regardless of the fact that their marriage was not consummated, she is banished forever from her own and her husband's family into an ashram where other widows reside. These women of all ages and social classes coexist together trying to find purpose in their new envirinment. When they are not cooking, cleaning or mending, they are praying or begging on the streets in order to pay the rent for their lodgings. Their income is meager and in most cases they obtain their food from money paid for services from Brahmins who get young widows procured to them in secret of the night. There is an underlying message here about the society of women who are promised into marriage at birth and have no change of ever learning how to read or obtain a trade that would allow the to earn decent living if there husband is no longer around to provide for them. They are deprived of ever having family, or remarriage. The customs say that woman can be cremated at the time of her husband death (burnt alove), sent to ashram for the rest of her life to live in penitence that will honor her departed husband, or with permission of the family marry her husband's younger brother. The traditional laws seem to overrule social laws created by the forward thinking progressive intellectuals. Forced protitution, pedofilia and general expoitation of these women is completely hearbreaking. Their only way out of it is death - natural or suicide - or miracle of any man wanting to marry them if they are still young and pretty enough. Feminist movie, that will get one thinking for a long time about women's (social) places in rural societies, or societies where religious tradition outweights all others.Movie Review: Mourning
Summary: 5 Stars
I didn't really know what to expect about "Water" except that it was an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film (generally a good category for "sleepers"). It didn't take long before I got drawn into the story and, especially, the characters. The picture takes place in 1938 India and Ghandi was a sort of supporting role in formulating the plot. We start the movie by witnessing a young girl (we're talking somewhere around 7-9 years old) finding out she's a widow. We then find out that widows in the Indian culture are doomed to live their live in a sort of impoverished pennance while being banned from remarriage. Our young girl is condemned to a sort of halfway house for widows. Some of the widows have been that way since the age of our heroine only now they are middle-aged. They have to fend for themselves which involves begging and more intimate pursuits. Our girl refuses to accept things the way they are and it is her agitation that creates a new attitude in the ranks of her elders. There are many facets of this theme played out in "Water" utilizing the many unique characters in the story. In the end, we are left with a modern-day perspective of a problem I (and, I suspect, most viewers) were innocently ignorant of.
This is a quality film which impressed me on virtually all levels. The cinematography was outstanding, the sound was terrific with the Indian music weaving in and out of the background, the acting was supurb, and the directing was excellent. "Water" was one of those movies that left me with a sort of numbness over what I had just seen.
Movie Review: Best Indian movie I ever saw
Summary: 5 Stars
And the only one I have seen. It is so good that I almost cried at the end but Im a man and men are never supposed to cry. As for women, they are different and are given another set of social rules. When they sleep around with men, they are called [...], when men do it, they are called players or playboys. My point is that men and woman are created differently and if there isnt something to clarify that difference and to explain it, there will be problems. Widows are looked upon differently in cultures. Some are respected and some are looked down upon. We need to follow our hearts and do what is right, regardless of what the social laws say.
This movie is based upon the way people live and behave towards widows in India. The similarities with the Hindus of today and of Pre-Islamic Arabia is very close. The way that woman were dealt with before the advent of Islam was deplorable. To quote the Quran " Ye are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should ye treat them with harshness," 4:19. The reason why I am making this comparison of Islam and Hinduism is because they both were started more than a thousand years ago. I know that in some places, women who are Muslim are not treated fairly. If there is ever any mistreatment of Muslim woman, in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, it is because of their culture and not religion. I wish more people would see Islam in the light of what it preaches and not what some if it's followers do. Please watch Legacy of a Prophet on Dvd, if you can. Also Google Muslims in Texas and see an incredible video.
Movie Review: Hidden sorrows on the banks of the Ganges
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an eye-opening film. And a heart-breaking one. And one that may leave you changed afterwards.
It's pacing seems to take its momentum from the opening scene of the large, ponderous river (representing the Ganges). But this pacing allows the viewer to fully absorb the culture, the characterizations and the details of the plot.
And it's visually stunning, taking some of the sting out of the forlorn story. Writer/director Deepa Mehta ignores the vérité style of layering ugliness upon ugliness to enhance a tragedy. So, instead, we revel in the beauty of nature. Of Indian artistic style. Of Canadian-Hindi actress Lisa Ray. And the hunky man (John Abraham) who is infatuated with her. And, finally, the beauty found in a remote hope.
The story seems fresh despite being constructed of familiar parts. The acting is generally very good with a superb one by Seema Biswas as the widow approaching middle age who is wise and sympathetic, but not so wise that she's immune to the ache of her predicament. Sarala as the 8-year-old widow is a scene-stealer despite her obvious inexperience. And John Abraham and, especially, Lisa Ray bring earnestness to their romantic storyline.
This film continues to haunt me. It was a powerful journey that I will no doubt take again and again.