Mehta wins with Water
Fri, November 11, 2005
Her subtly layered film blends rich human drama with difficult social issues.
By BRUCE KIRKLAND, Special to The Free Press
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Deepa Mehta's Water is blessed.
That might sound strange if you know the film's tumultuous history.
As the final part in her elemental trilogy that started with Fire (1996) and
Earth (1998),
Water was to have been made in India five years ago.
But Hindu extremists, who opposed the telling of this story, stormed the
production, destroyed
sets and threatened the Toronto filmmaker. Water, a Canadian production, was
delayed and
finally filmed in Sri Lanka as River Moon.
Mehta was able to revive her project, recast it with a uniformly stellar
ensemble and create it
as an act of love and not of defiance.
The blessing is that she was able to triumph. Water was the opening-night gala
at the Toronto
film festival. In art, it is results and not process that captivate audiences.
Water is an exquisite drama brimming with life and laughter, great tenderness
and wrenching
tragedy. It is a story of lives lived. There is wit and personality here. There
is lovely music
by Mychael Danna, with the songs of A. R. Rahman. Giles Nuttgens' photography
is gorgeous.
The action takes place on the banks of the Ganges River in India in the late
1930s. A child
bride (played with spirit by Sarala, a Sri Lankan village girl speaking lines
phonetically)
loses her aged husband after the wedding feast.
She is shipped off to a widows' house, where her head is shaved and she is
forced into a life
of destitution and potential depravity.
The ashram is financed through prostitution. Otherwise, there is no money for
food. The star
whore (Canadian Lisa Ray) is a spiritual creature who rises above her sexual
duties. She is a
lotus flower living in dirty water, a metaphor offered in the film.
Sarala and Ray become friends and provide the film's joyous moments (the
clapping scene).
Together, they encounter an intriguing outsider (Bollywood star John Abraham),
a wealthy
liberal idealist. Embracing the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, our naive hero
wants his beloved
India to change, including an end to the barbarism of shunning widows. And, of
course, Abraham
falls in love with Ray.
There is another woman (played by the respected Indian star Seema Biswas) who
figures
prominently in the complex structure of this film. She is a mature, religiously
devout widow
who watches over both Ray and Sarala.
Mehta, as writer and director, pulls off a small miracle with the layers of her
story. In the
first act, the focus is on Sarala; in the second act, it is on Ray; in the
third act, the film
belongs to Biswas. Yet this does not feel forced or artificial. There is a
natural flow as the
story evolves.
Another small miracle -- and this is also true of Fire and Earth -- is how well
the
socio-political elements are woven in, without destroying the intimacy of the
saga.
We get crucial background in subtle ways, especially on Gandhi and the movement
to free India
from the British. So, when Gandhi appears on screen in a riveting scene at a
local train
station, it feels right. Not incidentally, the profound words Gandhi speaks are
historically
accurate, although the place setting is fictional.
That is true of the whole story. Through fiction this powerful and humanistic,
the truth can be
told.
WATER * * * * 1/2
What: Drama directed by Deepa Mehta
Starring: Lisa Ray, John Abraham, Sarala, Seema Biswas
Classification: 14A
Where: Westmount 6 Cinemas, 785 Wonderland Rd. (474-2152)
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Entertainment/2005/11/11/1301897-sun.html
"We neglect our cities at our peril. For, in neglecting them, we neglect the
nation."
-John F. Kennedy
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