Deepa
Mehta's Water drenched in emotion
Toronto, Nov. 14, 2005
CTV.ca News
Deepa Mehta's Water, a tragic story of women trying
to survive in pre-independence India, is earning effusive
reviews, with The Globe and Mail calling it "a
watertight drama" directed with "a quiet,
lyrical assurance", and the Toronto Sun calling
it "an emotional masterpiece."
The movie tells the story of Chuyia, an eight-year-old
girl whose parents arrange for her to be married to
an old man she barely knows.
"Yes, an eight-year-old could be married at
that time," Mehta explained to Canada AM. "But,
you know, the ceremony is a formality -- it's a thing
of the past now, and the film is set in 1938 -- they
did not go to their husband's house till they reached
puberty and stayed with their family so it isn't as
if you get married and you're sent off."
When her ailing husband dies, Chuyia's fate is sealed.
"When husbands die, women are sent to these
ashrams," Mehta says. "They're spiritual
homes by the side of the river, the holy river, the
Ganges, where they live the rest of their lives in
penitence."
According to the Hindu custom of the time, the widows
must shave their heads and live in a cloister, where,
for the rest of their days, they must atone for the
sins that must surely have prompted their husbands'
deaths.
Mehta wanted the film to explore these misogynist
hypocrisies while also drawing a parallel between
the women's ache for freedom and the freedom that
India itself was seeking at the time.
But her story so offended modern Hindu fundamentalists
that they attacked her set in Varanasi in 2000 and
threatened Mehta with death. After enduring riots
and fires, the director and her crew packed it in
and closed down production.
Mehta returned to Canada to make instead the romantic
comedy, Bollywood Hollywood and her adaptation of
Carol Shields' The Republic of Love. But she never
abandoned Water and eventually went to Sri Lanka to
finish filming Water in secret.
The result is a film that completes Mehta elements
trilogy that included Fire (1996) and Earth (1998),
and one that many critics are saying is the director's
best film to date.
When the film debuted at the Toronto International
Film Festival – as the festival's opening gala
– the 1,200 attendees rose to their feet as the
credits rolled to give Mehta a standing ovation. Mehta
says it was a wonderful moment.
"I was sitting next to David Hamilton, who was
the producer, and Lisa Ray was alongside and John
Abraham and we all sort of looked at each other and
said 'Oh, my god, what happened?' There was pin-drop
silence and then the place erupted."
Mehta says she thinks the film was chosen to open
the festival because it represents the TIFF's international
scope.
"By choosing Water to open the festival, I think
that it really sort of pushed the boundaries of what
makes a Canadian film," Mehta says.
"The film is in Hindi with English subtitles
and Canada is a multicultural country and this kind
of acceptance really proves it, I think."
