WATER
Content: Deepa Mehta's film, Water, is about the oppression that widowed women in Inda must live with. She shows the despair and anguish that drenches their life because of their placement in society. The main characters, who are almost entirely women, must deal with moral and societal issues that make their life difficult in order to survive in a patriarchal society.
Context: The film Water, by Deepa Mehta, displays her strong feelings towards a feminist issue that she feels needs to be revealed to the world. In the film, she shows the power that a patriarchal and class-based society has on women. The film outlines how women, whose status is based on the relation to thier husbands, are affected by this patriarchal classification of their gender. It shows an ultimate example of how women, especially young women who have absolutely no agency, are affected by the views and beliefs of society. Mehta wants to reveal the subordinate life that women live in subjection to men in India. She wants the viewer to empathise with a socity that oppresses women on the basis of their gender.
This is a powerful message because it provides a view that supports the feminist notion of univeral oppression of women. The title of the film, Water, is a significant metaphor because like societal construction, water is the basis to all life; and if society oppresses women they must live within these social constructions in order to survive.
Form: The movie uses bright and extreme lighting in order to emphasis the women's beautiful surroudings in relation to their oppressed and angusihed lives. The natural surroundings contrasts the unnatural societal constructions glorifies the struggles that the women face.