Water

Synopsis

"After losing her husband to illness, 8-year-old Chuyia is forced to live out the rest of her days in a temple for Hindu widows." [Netflix] "For all her impassioned commitment as a filmmaker, Mehta never preaches but instead tells a story of intertwining strands in a wholly compelling manner. "Water," set in British occupied India of 1938, is as beautiful as it is harrowing, its idyllic setting beside the sacred Ganges River contrasting with the widows' oppressive existence as outcasts. The film seethes with anger over their plight yet never judges, and possesses a lyrical, poetical quality. Just like the Ganges, life goes on flowing, no matter what. Mehta sees her people in the round, entrapped and blinded by a cruel and outmoded custom dictated by ancient religious texts but sustained more often by a family's desire to relieve itself of the economic burden of supporting widows. As a result, she is able to inject considerable humour in her stunningly perceptive and beautifully structured narrative. "Water" emerges as a film of extraordinary richness and complexity." [Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times]
The movie begins by showing the laws of Manu: "A widow should be long suffering untill death, self-restrained and chaste. A virtuous wife who remains chaste when her husband has died goes to heaven. A women who is unfaithful to her husband is reborn in the womb of a jackal." When asked why the ritual regarding the seclusion of widows exists, Narayan says, "Disguised as religion, it's just about money." The love story about Kalyani and Narayan is tragic like Romeo and Juliet. In a brief segment showing Gandhi speaking at a railway station, he says "God is the Truth, and the Truth is God." At the end of the movie is shown, "There are 34 million widows in India who continue to live a life of deprivation because of laws prescribed 2000 years ago."

Genre

Historical

Released

2005

Location

South Asia

Period

1938 in Veronasi, India;

No