Saturday night,
lady_babalon and i went to see Deepa Mehta's film Water. It's been consuming our conversations and emotions ever since, and two days later, i still can't stop thinking about it.
Before the opening credits, we see seven-year-old Chuyia being asked by her father if she remembers being married. She cannot. Her husband died, he tells her. She's now a widow, and is required to live a life of ascetic denial at an ashram for widows, who are considered to be only half-alive and essentially outcaste.
Mehta tried to make this film in India for five years. Several attempts to make the film were prevented by violent protests, arson, death threats, and political posturing.
Opposition to this project was so severe that Mehta had to film in Sri Lanka under a phony title.
Mehta did not make a movie about how evil India is. Mehta is indeed very critical of Hindu fundamentalism, but in Mehta's analysis, the mistreatment of widows in India is not, at heart, about flaws we find only in Indian culture or religion. As she sees it, it is about economics and male privilege. Families use ancient beliefs about widows as an excuse to clear up some space in the family home and feed one less person. "Disguised as religion, it's just about money." Gender inequity is also blatantly obvious. Widows in India constitute a large pool of desperate, starving women (by my estimate, they make up 3-4% of the population) and many of them are prostituted. Their situation is so dire that men who rent their bodies can tell themselves they are doing these women a kindness.
She also portrays the solution to the problem as coming from within Indian thought and culture, symbolized by talk throughout the film about Mohandas Gandhi and his movement to reform the caste system. His words are quoted and tut-tutted by people along the chain of privilege who stand to lose their bit of benefit if widows are actually liberated.
(It also bears pointing out that, judging from the energy spent protesting feminism, talking about the mistreatment of women appears to be a bigger crime than, you know, actually mistreating women.)
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Before the opening credits, we see seven-year-old Chuyia being asked by her father if she remembers being married. She cannot. Her husband died, he tells her. She's now a widow, and is required to live a life of ascetic denial at an ashram for widows, who are considered to be only half-alive and essentially outcaste.
Mehta tried to make this film in India for five years. Several attempts to make the film were prevented by violent protests, arson, death threats, and political posturing.
The day before filming was due to begin, the crew was informed that there were a few complications with gaining location permits. The following day we were greeted with the news that 2,000 protesters had stormed the ghats, destroying the main film set, burning and throwing it into the holy river. Protesters burnt effigies of Deepa Mehta, and threats to her life began.
... "Breaking up the sets was far too mild an act, the people involved with the film should have been beaten black and blue. They come with foreign money to make a film which shows India in poor light because that is what sells in the west. The west refuses to acknowledge our achievements in any sphere, but is only interested in our snake charmers and child brides. And people like Deepa Mehta pander to them."
from The Politics of Deepa Mehta's Water
Opposition to this project was so severe that Mehta had to film in Sri Lanka under a phony title.
Mehta did not make a movie about how evil India is. Mehta is indeed very critical of Hindu fundamentalism, but in Mehta's analysis, the mistreatment of widows in India is not, at heart, about flaws we find only in Indian culture or religion. As she sees it, it is about economics and male privilege. Families use ancient beliefs about widows as an excuse to clear up some space in the family home and feed one less person. "Disguised as religion, it's just about money." Gender inequity is also blatantly obvious. Widows in India constitute a large pool of desperate, starving women (by my estimate, they make up 3-4% of the population) and many of them are prostituted. Their situation is so dire that men who rent their bodies can tell themselves they are doing these women a kindness.
She also portrays the solution to the problem as coming from within Indian thought and culture, symbolized by talk throughout the film about Mohandas Gandhi and his movement to reform the caste system. His words are quoted and tut-tutted by people along the chain of privilege who stand to lose their bit of benefit if widows are actually liberated.
(It also bears pointing out that, judging from the energy spent protesting feminism, talking about the mistreatment of women appears to be a bigger crime than, you know, actually mistreating women.)