Beauty of the World and the Despair Within it.
The film Water by Deepa Metha is about misogyny of women, specifically widows in India in 1938. Although Metha does not identify as a feminist film-maker, she identifies as a humanitarian film maker, which I believe to be very closely related. The film is shot in a blue/green light to accentuate the natural beauty around the Ganges river and to give the audience a break from the depressing lives of the widows who are caged inside this poor housing complex. The use of other colors, I understood the significance of the color black the best, I believe it signifies sin. This can be seen in cutting off all of the women's long black hair, in the small black dog Kaulu being a bad omen to the house(spelling?), and even when Kalyani first meets Narayan, he is wearing a long black overcoat.
The creation of this film is an act of agency by Mehta, because she is using her tools of film-making toward bettering the lives of Indian women widows and raising awareness of the lives these women are living. The public has a lack of understanding and no respect for women other than as sexual beings designed for the use of men, and once their men can no longer use them, they are a wasted corner of the home, just another mouth to feed. Metha addresses this misogyny and also addresses issues of class. Narayan comes from an upper class family, of the Brahmin class, while the widowed women are considered low class, the untouchables. In the film, Narayan's dad comments on how Brahmins have certain privileges and are closer to God than the untouchables are, because Brahmins can sleep with whomever they want, and it is actually serving the untouchables like a blessing.
I liked the film because it was depressing and ugly showing the lives these women live with their social restrictions and their hopelessness until Ghandi instills a new sense of faith. In the end Chuyia becomes a daughter of Ghandi where she is allowed to love and have a good life. In the end Chuyia is a symbol of resistance to the confins her society has placed on her, and she represents the hope that the wrong-doings against these women will end.