Water
Context:
Water is a film directed by Deepa Mehta, it is the third film in her elements film trilogy following the films Wind and Fire. This film follows the lives of widows living in the desperate conditions of an Indian ashram in 1938. Deepa stunningly exposes the extreme social ostracism in the name of religion that these women experience. With dialogue and excellent character development the spectator is persuaded to empathize with the widow’s hardship as well as recognize their incredible and seemingly undying courage in the face of extreme adversity. Deepa Mehta does not call herself a feminist filmmaker, rather she identifies as a humanist filmmaker. Which I think is illustrated by her desire to expose the extreme human rights violations that Indian widows have had to endure for many years. The making of water was certainly not easy; Deepa and her crew had to face several barriers, including violent activist protests, no defense or support from local government who sided with protesters, a dwindling budget, recasting, a forced location change to Sri Lanka and a five year delay in filming. Clearly, in the face of all these obstacles Deepa’s commitment to telling the story of Indian widows illustrates that she most certainly is a humanist director.
Content:
The film follows three main characters. The first of which is a 7 year old girl who at the beginning of the film is told that she has become a widow and must live in an ashram. The other two main characters of the film become her allies in the ashram and the film highlights the relationship between the three women. One of the two women is a middle-aged woman who has enormous faith in her religion and becomes a kind of maternal figure for the little girl. Although, this woman is seen as being pious and virtuous in the beginning she reveals a different more vulnerable side of her character through her bond with the little girl. The girl reminds her of a free time when she had big dreams for herself before she became a widow and was forced to hide from the world and live in destitute conditions. In so doing, the little girl helps her to have fun and inspires her to question the repressive systems that put her in her current situation. The other woman that befriends the little girl is a beautiful young woman who is the only woman in the commune who has long hair and her own room. She is playful and kind and appears to refuse to accept the repressive fate of widowhood. She is forced into prostitution by another woman in the ashram and earns the money for the rent in such a way. Despite that seemingly dismal piece of her reality she is able to maintain her spirits and her faith through her relationship with the little girl. One of the main pieces of this story is when the young woman falls in love with a wealthy, educated and handsome young man who is a liberal-thinker and wants to marry her despite her being a widow. This beautiful love story turns tragic when they discover that the man’s father was one of the young woman’s “clients” and the young woman kills herself out of depression and shame. In a horrifying scene toward the end of the film, the little girl is tricked into prostitution with a false promise of being able to return home. In the last scene, the middle-aged woman takes the traumatized little girl with her to a train station where Gandhi is speaking and as the train leaves she hands her off to the young man who is aboard to save her from future abuse in the ashram and give her the opportunity at a life she herself was denied.
Form:
The film was shot in a lot of blues and greens to highlight the extreme beauty of the Indian landscape but also to counteract the extreme pain and suffering of the characters living within that landscape. The water in the film almost acts as another character. Specifically, water is employed in every scene to symbolize the characters’ emotions. There are big rain storms in dramatic and exciting scenes, there are bonding scenes as the women wash up together at the river, there are dark gray rain clouds over the river in the sad scenes and happy sounding light rain in the joyous scenes. The death scenes all involve the use of water as a healer, soul keeper and in the form of holy water. Water an element often associated with a wide variety of emotions is employed beautifully to highlight them throughout the film. Color is also used to denote class for example, all of the widows wear plain white saris and the ashram is a dull beige rock whereas everyone else in the film besides the young man wears bright vibrant decorative colors and festive jewelry. This distinction is particularly salient in the scene in which the little girl is prepared to go to the ashram and her long brown hair is shaved off, her red bracelets are cut off and her pretty red dress is replaced by a plain white sari. This ritual symbolizes the dramatic entrance into poverty that widows face in India. Color is also used to convey the undying hope of the widows. The scenes with grief and death are almost totally devoid of color whereas, the scenes with love, happiness and hope show brilliant colors. For example, the scene near the end of the film with the color festival shows all the widows dancing together and rubbing brilliant colors on each other’s faces, symbolizing that despite all the hardship they still maintain hope and create their own happiness.
Feminist Analysis:
This film tells and brings awareness to the important story of the lives of widows in India. Deepa Mehta skillfully gives a voice to these women, a voice that inspires deep compassion from the film’s audience. She uses the medium of film to bring awareness to an issue that women have been facing for years, an issue of the extreme violations of women’s human rights. Through filmic construction Mehta also shows the world that these women have been impressively resilient despite the extreme human rights violations they endure daily. By fighting to tell this story and telling it in a way that serves the widows of India some of the long overdue justice they deserve, I would argue that Deepa Mehta is a feminist filmmaker. Whether she chooses to identify as a humanist or a feminist, with Water Deepa Mehta has told a story about the lives of women and made the world face an issue that the Indian government did not want exposed. That seems pretty feminist to me.