Water
(2005/Deepa Mehta)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B
Deepa
Mehta has now made a trilogy of films about women based on the elements. The first two are as follows, as reviewed
elsewhere on this site:
Fire (1996)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/141/Fire+(Mehta)
Earth (1999)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/142/Earth+(Mehta)
Now comes
in what is the best of the films yet, Water
(2005) deals with the nightmare scenario of young female children being married
at ages like 5 and 6, sometimes becoming widows soon after!
Taking
place in India, this film is set around the time of Gandhi’s rise and starts
with the 8-year-old Chuyia being dumped by her father at a Hindu home where
widows are kept. However, she is a free
spirit and her heart and soul challenge the established norms, dogma and
misogyny of this house of Hinduism and gives the audience a deeper inside look
at a culture we hear little about. This
is especially true in a time where all the negative images are about Islamic
extremists, but Hindu extremists (like so many others over her previous
productions) made multiple death threats against Mehta and even destroyed one
of her sets, so she must be doing something important, correct, moral and
valuable.
Instead
of being exploitive or relentlessly grim or ugly, underlyingly so in the latter
sense, but with a fine cast, some fine acting and increasingly skilled
filmmaking from writer/director Mehta, it is a film that is always interesting
throughout and maintains a sense of interest so many films lately have
not. Like all good films, it takes us
where we have not been before, but we are used to this from Mehta and she can
consider this another success.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot by cinematographer Giles
Nuttgens and looks a bit better than the previous films in the trilogy as
issued by New Yorker, but not too much.
They were flat widescreen, while this is scope, but it is visually in
the same mode of muted colors that reflect the foreign culture and terrain. Note that though the subtitles are good, they
are maybe the smallest we have ever seen.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is decent, if not always perfect, but dialogue
is clear and balanced well with the music and surrounds. This is the best sound she has had on a film
yet and the music score by Mychael Danna is a plus. Extras include Mehta’s full-length audio
commentary and two featurettes: one behind the scenes, the other behind the
story that inspired the film.
The best
of the three yet, Mehta is getting better and better as a filmmaker while
staying as controversial as ever. An
increasingly rare thing, especially for a female filmmaker, her work is
increasingly vital to a world cinema in a world whose troubles are coming to a
head.
- Nicholas Sheffo
