Review of Water (2014) by Gail R — 04 Sep 2008

I found this movie particularly interesting because I've just finished reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, a book which mostly concentrates on India under Indira Gandhi in the 1970's, but has flashbacks to rural India years earlier. This movie focuses on a few months in 1838 in the city of Varanasi (Benares) on the Ganges River. The movie originally started filiming in Varanasi, but was shut down by extremist protests. Filming resumed in Sri Landa four years later.

This is a film that demonstrates that explicit sex and violence are not essential to a stunning film. The violence in this film is merely hinted at, and it is no less devastating. Like A Fine Balance, Water examines the lives of people (in this case Hindu widows) who are trapped in the rigid codes of their society. There were a couple of instances where I thought I'd have to turn it off, that I couldn't bear to watch, but the movie is that compelling.

The only other film of Deepa Mehta's that I had seen was the delightfully loopy Cinderella-like Hollywood Bollywood (also starring Lisa Ray). I'd now like to see the two other films in her "elemental trilogy": Earth and Fire.