RhondaWeasley.com

Deepa Mehta is one of my favorite directors. The first film I saw of hers was (shocking I know) Fire, the lesbian love story and the first of what she calls her elemental trilogy. I accidentally found Water in the video store about a year ago and loved that. Having seen two of the three, I went in search of the last and middle movie Earth. The trilogy is completely unrelated in it’s characters, time, place and story. The uniting element seems to be social commentary. But for me, I often times find it astounding what she does with characters. Except in one case….
 

Fire (1996) is a social commentary on tradition and how one can become a puppet of it. In the center of the story are the wives of two brothers, Sita (married to Jatiin) and Radha (married to Ashok). Ashok, after discovering his wife is barren, dedicates his life to his religion and chooses to become celebrate. He never really ask his wife how she feels about it and though he is portrayed as a mostly good man, he’s selfish in this act. Even going so far as to test his temptation by having his wife lay beside him untouched. Sita, like Radha, is well trained in tradition and hopes for the best with her husband Jatiin despite their marriage being an arranged one. Unfortunately, Jatiin only took a wife to please his brother Ashok and ailing mother. He’s in love with a woman who will not marry him as she doesn’t want to be a part of his "joint" household with his mother and brother. The neglected wives end up bonding a little too tightly and falling in love with each other. The whole film plays on the secret desires of characters and how there needs must be neglected for the sake of tradition, even the house servant Mundu (who secretly watches porn). It’s a beautiful social commentary outside the lesbian context and seems to say that we shouldn’t embrace tradition at the sacrifice of our own hearts. The lead actress are great in what is pretty much a VERY tame lesbian relationship (even though it literally sent conservative groups in India on "fire"). But on repeat viewings I oddly felt sorry for Jatiin in his love for Julie. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a bastard. But he is as much a victim of circumstance as Sita, Radha, and Mundu. Watching Julie pull his strings is kind of heartbreaking if you’ve ever been a victim of that kind of love. Repeat viewings just make you see more and more the pitfalls of these characters lives.

Water (2005) is the second Elemental I saw and the last produced. It’s the story of a child bride named Chuyia. The little girl is widowed when her much older husband died. The little girl didn’t even remember being married though so when her father tells her the man is dead it has no impact. The first time you see this little one full of life you can hardly believe that anyone would do to this beautiful little girl what is done to her. Basically, she’s sent to a home for widowed women. The heart broken little girl doesn’t understand that (out of devotion to her husband) her destiny is to live among the windowed women until she dies. She initially continuously cries for her mother to take her home and you want to cry with her. This child actor was perfectly cast and amazing in her role. You never felt annoyed by her presence and even though the movie was making commentary on women as the expected devotees of their husbands, you like the movie for Chuyia and Chuyia alone. Anyway, Chuyia eventually befriends the widow Kalyani (who may have ended up at her fate the same as the Chuyia, certain scenes imply). She’s an observer to a forbidden romance between the widow and a handsome beau, but that romance ends in tragedy. Despite the social commentary laced throughout the piece, as I said, it’s the child you fall in love with. And when one of the widows adopts a sort of guardian role for the child and protects her (in the end) from a horrible fate the best way she knows how, you can’t help but feel her victory. For her victory is in saving Chuyia from becoming Kalyani. I liked Fire, I adore Water.

Finally… Earth (1998) was the last elemental I saw and the second produced and I’m sorry… boring. The story is about the breaking of India into India and Pakistan. It portrays the life of Indians in Lahore (1947) and Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs are living in apparent peace with each other along with the neutral Parsees and a few Christians. But when the Brits (always the white man’s fault, really it is) decide to create a separate country to resolve the Hindu/Muslim religious rivalry it then results in a social crack that leaves people, once friends who lived in peace, at each others throats. You see relationships break apart, cruelties done for various reasons or no reason at all. And all through the eyes of innocence, a little Parsee girl named Lenny. For some reason the child is handicapped, not that this has anything to do with the story. And beyond viewing the social crisis, the child has no real story of her own until she accidentally betrays her Nanny (unknowingly) to a man she trust. Even that is flat in the scope of everything else. The Nanny (played by the same actress who played Sita in "Fire") is a object of the affections of many, but her story is muddled at best. There’s some mixed and changing loyalties between neighbors. A boy cousin of Lenny’s who for no reason at all is magically there at the beginning, disappears in the middle of the story, and appears again at the end. There’s a little friend of Lenny’s who becomes a child bride for the sake of a conversion to Christianity that her family makes, but the child isn’t around long enough for us to care about her. Nor do we see much, if any, of the little girls’ friendship with each other. Basically there’s a lot going on, but it plays like it’s not sure if it wants to be a documentary of the horrors of the time period or a story of this little girl. Where Water won me over to everything with Chuyia, Lenny failed to ignite anything. The character just wasn’t moving (even though every bloody character in the movie seemed to adore the child for no reason at all). And the ending just makes me go, Huh? I don’t know if there was one character I really felt close too throughout the whole story… boring. This movie was apparently based on a book… I hope the book was better written.

So Thumbs up for “Fire” and “Water”, but thumbs down for “Earth”