| A Single Spark |
Before delving into this review, I must admit that I have never watched a single film from India. I have watched many foreign films from East Asia, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe but for some reason or another I have never took the time to sit down and watch an Indian film. Also, the fact still holds that, unless one counts M. Night Shyamalan, Deepa Mehta is the only Indian director whose name I know and I know her name only because of the controversy surrounding her films Fire, Earth, and Water. However, I figured one of these films would be a good place to start so I picked up Fire at my local independent video store and I must say that the film left me feeling a bit discombobulated. I am not saying the film was bad, far from it, but it did leave bit of an odd taste in my mouth for a couple of reasons.
One reason is that the film is in English. Indian film plus Indian director plus filmed in India led me to expect that the film would be in Hindi, but no, besides for a couple of scenes the entire film is in English. I later read that Deepa Mehta, whose first language is English, first wrote the script in English and had thought of translating it into Hindi, but many of the concepts could not easily be expressed in Hindi because certain concepts were foreign to the culture, read lesbianism. Also, Deepa Mehta's take on Hinduism was quite something to behold. Being someone who teaches Eastern Religions, including Hinduism, it almost seemed that Mehta was trying to mock her religion, however, this is not quite so. She mocks bad swamis, "great teachers who seem to be after nothing else but money. However, she does hold a blade to the throat of tradition as well, because she feels that tradition and ritual tie people, especially women, down and keeps them from fully experiencing life.
Fire centers around Sita, a beautiful young woman with long raven tresses who has just been married to Javin, a tall, slender, handsome but quite taciturn man. It soon becomes evident that Javin cares naught for Sita; the viewer soon learns that he has a Chinese girlfriend, and considers her nothing more than a vessel to fulfill wifely duties while he continues to do as he pleases. Also in the family are Jatin's older brother Ashok and his wife Radha, elderly mother Biji, and a manservant named Mundu. Sita quickly becomes bored living in the household and lonely because Jatin is always with his Chinese girlfriend. She becomes closer to Radha who is almost twenty years her senior and who is enmeshed within the binds of tradition. However, the warmth and love Sita brings begins to open Radha's heart to love which she never experienced with her husband. Yet, how long can something like this last.
Fire is by no means an explicit movie. There are no explicit sex scenes, but the mere act of showing sexuality especially sexuality between two women was enough to get this film banned in India and earn the director death threats from fundamentalists. While I find the film a bit clunky and heavy-handed in parts, I still think it is well worth a watch and I will definitely watch Earth and Water in the near future. |
4 Rating
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