Friday, February 16, 2007

God-like truth is the beauty worth living for.

Water (2005) is a movie by Deepa Mehta about widows in pre-independence India, who were forced by men to live in inhuman condition for the rest of their lives (whether it is in ‘vidhwa ashram’ or home). It will not come as a surprise if in rural part of India i.e. two-third of India, widows are still facing this 2000 year old curse in letter and spirit. Anyways following are my two cents:

  1. It is not worth the Oscar nomination in a foreign film category. For it is not perfectly made, there are clear signs that this is not shot in the banks of river Ganga, all the folks in the movie (except the star cast) were south Indians (or Sri Lankan). Acting is superb by all the actors, especially the little girl. But, nothing is exceptional. Maybe they nominated it just because it is an entry form Canada and not India. It surely had exceptional idea of story, but movie is not Oscar-type. By Oscar-type I meant movies like Apu’s trilogy.
  2. This movie was shot in Sri Lanka because it was not allowed by Hindu leaders to shoot in India as they found it offensive!!! I think they could not tolerate the pain of those widows, even if they were acting and not real widows. This clearly shows the concern of Indian society for women.

IMDB Link for Water (2005) = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240200/

PS: Mahatma Ghandi ji appears in the climax scene of movie and really does the job of concluding the movie. Truth is God, and thus by following truth, we do not violate any Shastra or any other holy scripture.

 

1 comment:

Proma said...

I was actually happy when it was at least nominated. I had felt very sad for a long time after watching the movie(and I watch a LOT of movies). I am not sure if Indians could or could not tolerate the pain of widows (Sati pratha and similar gruesome rituals were common in the past).
I think Indians (or any other nation for that matter) would not want to be portrayed as a un-conscientious.