The final offering in the thematically linked but dramatically unrelated ‘Elemental Trilogy’, Water sparked riots by Hindu fundamentalists in the original Indian location of Benares, forcing Deepa Mehta to move her production to Sri Lanka. Re-assembling a cast after a delay of several years and overseeing production under an assumed name, Mehta has managed to craft, with help from cinematographer Giles Nuttgens , a visually stunning film that may well be considered the polished gem in the trilogy. However, though Water is visually of the first water, it proves to be the least emotionally engaging of the three. But that’s still good enough to warrant a viewing, especially on the big screen, where you can just sit back and let the shots of flowing river, rain-pocked puddles and teeming monsoon rains cascade over you, sluicing you from head to toe till you’re washed clean and arise pure and refreshed.

Among fundamentalist Hindus, when a woman is widowed, she has three options— marry his brother, immolate herself on her husband's funeral pyre, or live in abject poverty in an ashram with other widows. When the widow is a child of 8 who has no memory of the wedding, let alone the elderly husband who has died, this is even more shocking. The movie may be set in 1938 (Mehta has gone further and further back in time with each of her Elemental films), but an end-note indicates that the practice still survives in parts of India—this is what prompted widespread protests.

The child-widow, Chuyia, is left at an ashram by her father who informs her that her husband has died. Homesick and out of sorts, she upsets the status quo of the ashram by her mere presence. Once she realizes that her parents are not coming back for her, she starts taking part in ashram life. One of the widows, stern and devout Shakuntala (Seema Biswas), takes pity on this young child and pays some attention to her. The ashram seems to be ruled by the foul-mouthed Madhumati, also known as Didi (Manomara) who, with the help of Gulabi (Raghuvir Yadav) pimps a beautiful young widow, Kalyani (the dreamy-looking Lisa Ray), out to high-caste Brahmin gentry across the River Ganges so as to make money to support the ashram and Madhumati’s prodigious appetite and pot-smoking habit. When forward-thinking law-student and Gandhi-admirer, Narayan (John Abraham), falls in love with Kalyani from a distance, Chuyia acts as an unwitting go-between. When Narayan proposes and Kalyani accepts, threatening to upset the very livelihood of the ashram, Kalyani is locked up in her room, forbidden to see Narayan again. Widows can’t marry. Or can they? With the rise of Gandhi and his teachings, new laws are being passed. But tradition can be much more binding than the law.

The characters are memorable, from spunky little Chuyia who uses her only coin to buy a ladoo (a sweet) for the elderly Patiraji (Vidula Javalgekar) whose only memory outside of the ashram where she had spent her whole life seems to be the sweets at her wedding, to the dreamy Kalyani who appears completely untarnished by her profession, to the devout but pragmatic Shakuntala who questions the priest closely about the Scriptures that bind her.

While the story is seen through the eyes of Chuyia and is about Kalyani, the most interesting, and ultimately pivotal, character is Shakuntala. Her faith sustains and binds her, yet she is not so blind as to follow it without question. Chuyia’s spirit and Kalyani’s fate move her to take action, in a courageous act involving the train to freedom on which Gandhi himself was riding, showing us that courage and conscience together have the power to transform the world for the better.

Seema Biswas gives a strong performance as Shakuntala, though the script gives her little opportunity to shine. Lisa Ray as Kalyani is beautiful, but her dreamy portrayal of a grossly-abused woman is a tad unbelievable. John Abraham as Narayan is cursed with matinee idol good looks which, if he had been a better actor, would perhaps not have mattered too much. Manorama gives a spot-on performance as the vile Didi. Chuyia is played by an 8-year-old Sri Lankan girl, Sarala, who learnt her lines phonetically and yet delivered them with aplomb. Her spunky and spirited portrayal of the child widow is another instance of Deepa Mehta’s gift of finding and working with talented child actors.

The pace of Water is, at best, staid, and a critic has likened it to a curtain of ignorance being slowly lifted. Also, it seems to me that Mehta has reacted to past criticism of melodrama and gone the other way, with a very abrupt and emotionless reaction to an onscreen tragedy that cried out for closure.

Typically for Mehta, she has centred in upon a small group of individuals living under oppressive conditions, while all around them the world is changing. Gandhi was beginning to make his mark. The breath of freedom was blowing down on the multitudes. But as was often the case for many, for Mehta’s characters, it came too late. Her India is one of contradictions, of cruelty and kindness living side by side, of devoutness and narrow-mindedness co-existing, of hypocrisy and sincerity residing within the same person, of stifling traditions and burgeoning modernism, of the futility of the past and hope for the future.

Water is the source of life and also the element to which the dead are returned as ashes into the holy Ganges river. Water is a symbol of purity—people bathe in the Holy Ganges to purify themselves; likewise, the widows in the ashram are in search of cleansing, of purification. To mark them as outcasts, they wear white (colourless) saris, just as water is colourless. Water is transparent, just as the widows are to the families who don’t want them any more. Water is reflective, reflecting our image, allowing us to see ourselves, if not as we truly are, then at least as others see us.

Mehta’s final film in her Elemental Trilogy may be the most reflective of the three, in the sense that it’s the most thoughtful and contemplative. The execution may leave something to be desired, but the thoughtfulness and the contemplation and the intelligence are there. The will is there, Mehta’s will, to go against the threatening masses of ignorant and intolerant people, in order that she may expose and condemn the wrongs done in the name of tradition, that she may give voice to the oppressed, to those who cannot speak for themselves. Her modus operandi appears to be this—find a meaningful story and tell it beautifully, with heart and conscience.


Recommended:
Yes

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