Review of Water (2014) by Zorphie Z — 20 Jan 2009

Long-awaited and overdue--production was held up by protestors and censors--but almost all of Deepa Mehta's films attract controversy because of her honesty and bravery. This film is wisely set during a time in India (Nationalist Movement/Gandhi's arrival from Africa) when people were raising many questions about the religious, cultural, and colonial status quo.

The political movement intersects with the exposure and exploration of the widow's traditional place in Indian society. Like many truly patriotic works, Mehta's film pokes at the soft underbelly of the familial ideal using clever irony.

After the death of their husbands, the women in the film are cast off by their families and take up residence in an ashram in Varanasi at Dharma Ghat (a temple on the riverbank, to whose waters devotees come for baths, ceremonies, and cremations).

While overtly shunned, at night they are ferried across the river to provide sex for hyprocritical wealthy clients, and thus supplement their meager existence in the ashram. When child-bride/widow comes to the ashram, she's caught between a web woven by those having a stake in upholding the status quo, and the tides of change washed in by a greater awareness of power structures.