Banned by Hindu fundamentalists who trashed the cinemas where the movie was first screened in some parts of India, Fire has been loathed and feted in almost equal measures. It garnered a host of awards at various international film festivals, and critics have described it as revolutionary and ground-breaking. But producer/director/ screenplay writer Deepa Mehta (a Canadian of Indian descent who has since gone on to complete the thematically linked but dramatically unrelated trilogy with Earth and Water) said she never intended to provoke such controversy, and was shocked by the anger and violence caused.

The screenplay may not have been meant to provoke, but it’s certainly daring. Even in this day and age, for an Indian movie set in contemporary times to portray female-female intimacy, suggests a willingness on the part of its producer to, well, play with fire. True, the intimate scenes between the two female leads are filmed in context and with sensitivity, and are tame by Western standards—long shots and muted lighting help give the love scenes a sensual and erotic rather than explicit feel. But they are still incendiary by Indian standards, with soulful kisses shared between the two female leads and one shot of a naked breast that, admittedly, is brief enough to have passed the censors at least.

Those looking for titillation, having heard about the lesbian connection, need not waste time on Fire. It is less about the love that dares not speak its name than about the emotional emancipation of women brought up to believe that duty binds them to their husbands, rightly or wrongly, and that because they have been born the wrong gender in a patriarchial society, subservience is an unarguable part of their lives.

Nandita Das plays Sita, a young bride newly arrived in the home of her husband Jitan, (Jaaved Jaaferi at his most surly and churlish) following an arranged marriage. Jitan has been strangely morose throughout their honeymoon, and it turns out that he’s still in love with his Chinese girlfriend and had only married Sita following persistent nagging by his older brother, Ashok (Kulbushan Kharbanda). Carrying on the family name is particularly important to Ashok because his own wife of many years, Radha (the luminous Shabana Azmi), has been unable to bear him a child. Ashok spends a lot of time and money on a swami in a personal bid to attain asceticism through celibacy, using his wife to test himself against temptation. Meanwhile, Radha toils hard in the family takeaway business and looks after her incapacitated mother-in-law.

Despite Sita’s youth and inbred sense of tradition (“We're so bound by customs and rituals. Somebody just has to press my button, this button marked Tradition, and I start responding like a trained monkey.”), she stands up to her philandering husband and pursues her increasing attraction towards Radha. The latter, who has been living a life devoid of affection, let alone passion, becomes drawn to this young girl who makes her question the validity of her role as a wife to an emotionally-absent man, and at the same time awakens in her, for the first time in many years, an overpowering sense of desire.

Comic relief is provided by the family retainer Mundu (Ranjit Chowdry) who misbehaves in the most outrageous manner, and whose imagination gives us a comic version of a classic Hindu legend from which is derived a tradition of devoted wives fasting for their husbands’ long lives.

Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens is a master of chiaroscuro. The interplay of light and shade, bright colors and muted tones, all serve to underline the inner struggle of the luminous Shabana Azmi as Radha. As her relationship crystallizes with the modern-thinking and free-spirited Sita (“Sita says the concept of duty is over-rated,” Radha tells her bemused husband at one point), she begins to stand up for herself. In the end, for Radha, who had thought she had no choices, it boils down to a single choice—surviving without passion or living with love.

No doubt the Hindu fundamentalists were outraged by the use of their most revered goddesses’ names for the female leads. Deepa Mehta has admitted candidly that if she had been Muslim instead of Hindu, she might well be lynched by now, considering today’s intolerant religious climate.

Shabana Azmi’s beautiful face will haunt you long after the movie is over, and the movie is worth a second viewing to appreciate the nuances of her acting, as in the scene where the heart-weary Radha asks of her husband when he claims it is her duty to help him renounce the temptation of the flesh: “But how will it help me?”

The film’s title refers to the story of the Hindu goddess Sita made to go through the Trial by Fire by her husband, the god Ram, in an attempt to prove her purity. In the end, she emerges unscathed and therefore vindicated, and yet is banished into exile. In the movie, a live theatrical troupe’s performance of the goddess’s Trial by Fire is shown. There is a candid shot of a woman in the audience, weeping and rocking an infant in her arms. What are the odds that her purity had been called into question.

Fire’s ending pits Radha in the goddess’s role, and the final scene underlines Deepa Mehta’s opinion of the relationship between the two sisters-in-law. Their love may be pure, but it marks them as outcasts in a society where patriarchy rules and women struggle even now to throw off the yoke of oppression.

Fire is, ultimately, an intimate study of choice and desire, where two very different women flout the oppressive traditions of their strict Hindu upbringing, choosing to live with desire rather than survive a loveless existence.

Producer/director/screenplay writer Deepa Mehta is to be applauded for her courage in tackling what is essentially a taboo subject, and doing so with intelligence, sensitivity and style.

Included with the DVD are interviews with Deepa Mehta, Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das as well as a short documentary investigating the controversy among Hindu fundamentalists, all of which are highly revelatory and provide more background to Indian socio-politics.

Highly recommended.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older