A powerful mix of conflict, history, religious intolerance
SUSAN WALKER ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER Water is framed by two statements that open and close the film. One is from a Hindu text about the obligations of a wife to her husband. The other reports that there were 34 million widows in India as of the 2001 census, many of them living in horrible conditions. The story that Deepa Mehta tells in Water concerns Hindu widows who occupy an ashram in a holy city, Rawalpur, on the banks of the Ganges River. The year is 1938. The ashram is like a convent, except that the devotees did not arrive there of their own accord. Chuyia is an 8-year-old who's informed of the death of her middle- aged husband. "You do you remember getting married don't you?" her father asks. The child shakes her head. She cries when her father takes her to a walled-in house for widows where she's to spend the rest of her life. In traditional Hinduism, a wife is considered to be half of her husband. When he dies, she is half dead. The 14 sequestered widows in Water range in age from 8 to 80-something. They wear white saris, their hair is closely cropped. On their foreheads they paint gold emblems that look like tuning forks. They eat one meal a day. A barber shaves off Chuyia's hair. The little girl, confidently stating that her mother is soon coming to take her home, does not adjust to life in the ashram. She does not accept the authority of Madhumati, the 70-year-old widow who is the mother superior. Chuyia calls her "Fatty" and grimaces when she's giving the old broad a massage by walking on her back. Madhumati doesn't deprive herself; she eats extravagantly and gossips daily with a eunuch, Gulabi, who dresses like a woman and acts as a pimp. A pimp's services are required because Madhumati earns money by prostituting one of the widows, the beautiful Kalyani. She wears her hair long, lives in quarters apart from the others, and befriends Chuyia. All of the women suffer, but none so much as Shakuntala, who in addition to enduring poverty and imposed silence is a devout Hindu trying to make sense of her life through her religion. She is the one who takes on the tutelage and care of Chuyia, a stubborn student who wants to know "Where is the house of Men-Widows?" Across the river lies a mansion where two adult brothers live with their parents. One is Rabindra, an anglophile, who likes the English for their whiskey and their poetry. His lawyer brother Narayan is a follower of Mahatma Ghandi, whose campaign to liberate India from the English is just gathering steam. Walking down the street one day, Narayan meets Kalyani and is immediately stricken by Kalyani's beauty. There can be little question of her status, one that his wealthy parents would of course shun. Told in Hindi with English subtitles, it's a story that pulls at the heart like the moon over night waters. Mehta has concocted a potent mix of politics, historical conflict, religion and philosophical questioning. Water is the third and final film in a series that began in the present with Fire and proceeded to Earth, in which she related a family saga showing tensions that gave rise to the partition of India in 1947. As in those works, she weaves a compelling tale with cinematic beauty and spoken wit: There are moments for laughter even in Water. Lisa Ray gives a subtle performance as Kalyani opposite John Abraham as the serious-minded Narayan. Sri Lankan child actor Sarala captures the camera in her first acting role, with eyes like deep pools of emotion. Seema Biswas, who stunned Toronto festivalgoers in 1994's Bandit Queen, excels in the complex part of Shakuntula, the ultimate central character in the film. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Life without art & music? Keep the arts alive today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/iuUuID/dnQLAA/n1hLAA/iyUplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Explore, Experience, Enjoy A.R.Rahman - The Man, The Music, The Magic. Only at arrahmanfans.com - The definitive A.R.Rahman e-community. Homepage: http://www.arrahmanfans.com Admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arrahmanfans/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
