Water
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Movie Reviews of Water
Movie Review: Beatiful movie
Summary: 5 Stars
A beautiful movie. Great casting, story, acting, settings, filming. All around, just beautifully done.Movie Review: touching movie
Summary: 5 Stars
i watchedit with my husband and the movie was very sentimental and touching. a must see movieMovie Review: Excellent glimpse into another life...
Summary: 4 Stars
WATER is a rare movie that succeeds in being many things at the same time. It's a love story, and it's political; it has aspects of coming-of-age drama while also exploring the gaps between generations; there is poetry in both language and vision; it feels at times like a fantasy, but one achieved through realism, through the rare opportunity to peer into a world most of us would never have the opportunity to see.
Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, WATER is the third in her "elemental trilogy," having been preceded by EARTH and FIRE. I had seen neither before watching the DVD of WATER, so don't worry, you don't need to know the other stories to know what's happening in this one. You're probably going to want to go back and watch the others just because WATER was so good, though. I know I have put them at the top of my rental queue.
WATER is set in India during the 1930s. Gandhi is starting to gain notoriety and his progressive ideas are sweeping over a nation that has spent too much time under foreign rule. That is merely a backdrop, however, an indication of a larger social milieu. The real story is in an ashram where widows live the remainder of their lives in a state of denial, compelled by Hinduism to abandon the material world at the same time their husbands did. Only, since they are still alive, they have to do so by renouncing their very existence. Heads shaved, allowed only one meal a day, and forbidden from any extended contact with men, they live a meager existence together in their own pocket culture.
The film opens when eight-year-old Chuyia (played by Sarala) is informed that her husband has died. Not even old enough to realize that she had been married, Chuyia is in a state of confusion when she is shuffled off to the widows' ashram. She rebels and fantasizes about escaping. Eventually, she settles in, befriending the beautiful Kalyani (Lisa Ray), who has been forced into prostitution by the rotund ruler of the house, Madhumati (Manorama), in order to provide for the needs of the other widows. Chuyia and Madhumati clash instantly, and it's only thanks to intervention of the calm Shakuntala (Seema Biswas) that the young girl escapes a beating.
The injustice of how the widows live is quite obvious, and Mehta doesn't have to overdo it to make us see her point. She deliberately sets the movie at a time of cultural change in India, because it gives her a convenient platform to illustrate this bizarre situation. The three generations of women--Chuyia, Kalyani, and Shakuntala--represent three tiers of belief. The youngest does not yet know what is in store for her, whereas the older is completely resigned to her fate. It's only the middle woman, Kalyani, who is aware of both sides, and who can temper the hope of the child with the wisdom of age. The handsome and sensitive Narayan represents the progressive mind of India. He is willing to buck his mother's desires for him to marry within his class, smitten as he is with Kalyani. A student of Gandhi, Narayan is also an aficionado of romantic poetry, imagining himself as a warrior in an epic battle for love. He's going to marry Kalyani, and he's not afraid of the consequences.
Naturally, changes of this kind do come with consequences, and none of the women are unaffected. Shakuntala is goes through the deepest transformation, and the fate of the child is placed on her back. All the actors are great, but Biswas has the most work to do. The gradual erosion of her resolve could have been overwrought, but she makes the inner conflict feel real. It's largely down to her that the ending works. Once again, in less capable hands, the final scenes could have been schmaltzy, but Mehta is not interested in a complete triumph. She has written a story where good things happen, but with the appropriate price.
Just as complex as the social issues is Mehta's approach to the various images of water in the movie. She is not content to establish one metaphor for the element, but to look at all of its uses. It might be cleansing and life giving, but it can also take away. It can ferry us to a new life or to our own destruction. The most romantic use of water imagery, however, is when Narayan is alone with Kalyani and he recites a verse about how rain clouds are the messengers of the heavens. Thus, his failure to see an oncoming storm also becomes all the more ironic.
Even if WATER didn't have such an involving story, it would be worth watching just to look at it. Mehta and her director of photography, Giles Nuttgens (YOUNG ADAM), are clearly enamored of India. The city streets are lovingly shot, the details of the people and their surroundings orchestrated down to the smallest detail. This means they also don't shy away from the squalor, which provides an excellent contrast to the gorgeous nature shots. The ones centered around water are particularly beautiful.
WATER isn't just an exceptional movie, but it's also an exceptional DVD. In addition to a commentary by Deepa Mehta, there are two featurettes on the making of the movie. A lot of preparation went into getting the historical and cultural details of the movie correct, but there was also a behind-the-scenes struggle to get the movie made that is just as interesting as the final product. Faced with opposition from religious fundamentalists who misconstrued Mehta's intentions, the production was shut down before it started, and it took Mehta several years to get it going again. When she did, she had to shoot in Sri Lanka instead of India. For a film about the gradual change of religious politics set over sixty years ago, the battle against Water is a grim reminder that we're still faced with such problems today.
Movie Review: Politics Aside, A Film of Consummate Beauty
Summary: 4 Stars
Even before the opening credits, I could see by the gorgeous cinematography that WATER was going to be an outstanding film--and it is. The movie takes on the Hindu caste system & focuses on the plight of lower caste widows during the early rise of Gandhi in the 1930's. The widows in the film are sent by relatives (as in parceled out like an ordinary commodity) to a sort of rundown hostel in the poorest section of New Delhi. A toad like elderly female tyrant runs it--but she's not totally bad, she deeply mourns the death of a pet parrot--AND she likes to blow Ganga while praising Shiva...she might be cranky & look like Yoda, but, hey, she's my kind of gal!
The film revolves around 2 major plots: The life of a little girl widowed at the age of 7, and the love between a beautiful widow & prostitute (?) with an upper caste attorney who supports Gandhi & the social modernization movement. The actress Sarala who plays the young girl (making her Bollywood premiere) is outstandingly natural & a pure joy to watch. The adult young woman & the upper caste man are appropriately attractive & star-crossed.
In one scene a very old woman is talking to the girl, telling her that she was also widowed as a child. The happiest moment she can recall was her wedding feast (when she too was 7) where she ate all kinds of candies & sweets. Now she doesn't have the money to buy sweets & often dwells on her only happy memory during her entire lifetime and she constantly reflects on it--often--as us old folks are prone to do. The little girl surprises the old lady while she's sleeping, leaving a large confection near her head for the old woman to see when she wakes up. The woman dies that same night. I don't recall if she at least had the time to wake-up & see her new friend's act of generosity.
When discussing life in general, another widow remarks that if a woman were really, really good in this life, when she dies she might be blest enough to return (reincarnate) as a man. This widow is also spiritually attached to a Hindu priest & his modest Ashram (spiritual teaching/healing center). This sub-plot illustrates how people in general often seek compensation in religion for the hardships of life, a life that--more often than not--seems wholly indifferent to the human condition.
Another character of interest in the movie is a male transvestite who always wears women's clothes--sort of like the "Gaudy Goddess Line". I'm not exactly sure what h/she was meant to convey in the movie, but I do know that there is a Hindu deity named Kartikeya who is androgynous. The actor does seem to "parrot" (or parody) the emotions of the old tyrant, and together they appear to burlesque a mutually exaggerated emotional view of life.
Now on to negative reactions to
the socio-religious-political implications of WATER.
(Whew!)
The people who gave this film a single star (and probably would have withheld even that if Amazon review rules allowed it), in no uncertain terms denounce the film on political & religious grounds. A lot of the dissention centers on the ancient Texts of Manu (specific date uncertain, but generally between 200 BCE-200 CE). The texts deal with the subject of Hindu spiritual law. As much I am drawn to Hindu practices & incorporate them into my personal religious mythology, I don't have the educational background at the moment with which to weigh in on the specifics of the reviewer's arguments. They are quite vituperative in their objections to WATER.
Perhaps there is a certain degree of truth on both opposing sides?
The events as portrayed in WATER occurred 70 + years ago. Certainly the United States, for example, has experienced a near revolutionary reform of race relations from the 1950's onward. I am aware that there remain today extremely backward "spiritual" practices in India such as astrology & the Guru racket (not all gurus are confidence tricksters, but many are). Women aren't jumping into the husband's funeral pyre (i.e. suttee) anymore (I hope.) Then there's the artistic aspect: I find abhorrent the politics & twisted mythology of the 1930's Nuremberg Nazi documentary, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL by Nazi enthusiast Leni Riefensthal, but nonetheless I recognize it as a masterpiece and--yes--work of genius. The film's artistic merit transcends its' own propaganda--and I don't mean to equate WATER with racist fascism, but it's always difficult when dealing with diametrically opposed symbolism & belief systems.
Obviously I don't have ready answers to the political & religious objections raised by other reviewers, but I do want them to know that I don't dismiss their concerns, and will look closer into the issues.
In conclusion--and on a much more positive note--the wonderful fusion composer, Mychael Danna, is credited for the softly woven soundtrack of WATER.
Celtic Tale: Legend of Deirdre
Movie Review: cultural traditions meet liberal ambitions
Summary: 4 Stars
et in 1938 India and Ghandi's rise to power, Water opens when Chuyia's father awakens her and asks, "My child, do you remember getting married?" She says no, and her father responds, "Your husband is dead; you are a widow now." Chuyia is eight years old, and as one of India's 34 million widows her head is shaved and she is banished for life to a home where Hindu widows live in penitence. They are a source of ritual impurity for anyone who touches them or is even darkened by their shadow. But this does not stop the authoritarian and obese Didi who runs the home from pimping. Director-writer Deepha Mehta (who received death threats for her work and had to move filming to Sri Lanka) uses Chuyia's plight as a window onto the larger degradation of widows by crafting a major sub-plot when another widow, improbably gorgeous Kalyani, falls in love with the liberal-minded Brahmin and follower of Ghandi Narayan. To divulge the twists and turns that their relationship take would spoil unexpected suspense. The marginalization of widows in Hindu society, remarks Narayan, is all about "one less mouth to feed, four less saris, and a free corner in the house. It's disguised as religion, but it's all about money." In Hindi with English subtitles.