WATER

Directed by Deepa Mehta (2005)

By:

Casey Cook

&

Alexander Jones

Mehta was born on January 1st, 1950 in Amritsar, Punjab, India. She is currently 64. Mehta’s father worked as a film distributor. She was sent off to a boarding school full of girls entitled the Welham Girls High School, located in Dehradun, India. After boarding school, Mehta continued her studies at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. Surprisingly, her studies began in philosophy.

Deepa Mehta

Life in the 'British Raj'

Historical Background

- Elements Trilogy -

Mehta's Magnum Opus

Water is part of her elements trilogy, her most beloved works including other Fire and Earth, along with Water. Fire released in 1996 revolves around a homosexual relationship forged in India, and was very controversial at the time for being one of the first big Indian mainstream films to examine the issue. Three incidents were documented in the 1998 incident in November. Earth was next up from Mehta, which launched in 1998 it was also adapted from a novel called Cracking India which was written in 1991 by Bapsi Sidhwa. The protagonist in Earth is named Lenny, a small child struck with polio. Bear in mind the the film was set in 1947. While polio is an issue that the film tackles head-on, the real political statement being made in this film revolves around the choice relationships between the people of Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim religions. Earth was much less controversial than the other films in the series, but still beloved and measured as an important part of the Elements Trilogy.

Sarala Kariyawasam

Kariyawasam, better known as Chuyia for her role in Mehta’s Water is from Sri Lanka, in a small city named Galle. She was seven years old during her breakthrough performance in Water. Sanghamitta Balika Vidyalaya, also known as Sanghamitta Girls' College, is where Kariyawasam studied. She received Hollywood’s Young Artist Award for best performer in her role. Mehta auditioned over fifty girls for the part, and chose Kariyawasam out of them. She had experience on the stage, and also won a talent competition before her she auditioned for the role. Sarala didn’t know any Hindi, and so she had to memorize all the words and sounds individually. Another distinctive challenge for Sarala was learning English, a language she was also unfamiliar with. Kariyawasam also had to shave her own head for the performance.

Lisa Rani Ray

- Kalyani - 

Lisa was born in 1972, she initially emerged from Canada. Her father was Indian, and her mother was Polish. Ray studied at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Richview Collegiate Institute, and Silverthorn Collegiate Institute. Her modeling career helped her break into acting, where Mehta offered a her a role that she couldn’t refuse. That role was Hollywood/Bollywood, and after the film Mehta left for acting school in London. She turned down several roles for films while she was there in order to focus on her training, but Mehta came knocking again while she was studying, this time for Water.

Lisa Battled with Cancer in 2009

National Political Context

Chaudhuri, Shohini

I will discuss, what seems to anger most critics of Water is its exhibition of India’s ‘shame’ – its inhumanity to widows – that is, washing dirty linen in public. This is why it provoked the ire of Hindu fundamentalists: nothing could be further from the BJP’s vision of ‘India Shining’ (its 2005 election slogan), or the media images of the information technology and consumer boom projecting India’s triumphant emergence as a global economic power, no longer positioned as a developing nation.

Scholarly Sources

Hopgood, Fincina

Water (2005), the final instalment in Deepa Mehta’s ‘elemental trilogy’, has had – in the director’s own words – ‘a tumultuous birth’. It has taken five years for this third film in the series,  following Fire (1996) and Earth (1998), to reach the screen, after what has been described as ‘one of the most turbulent experiences in filmmaking history’.

- Roger Ebert -

The best elements of "Water" involve the young girl and the experiences seen through her eyes. I would have been content if the entire film had been her story. But Chuyia meets Narayan, a tall, handsome, foreign-educated follower of Gandhi, and when she brings him together with Kalyani, they fall in love. This does not lead to life happily ever after, but it does set up an ending as melodramatic as it is (sort of) victorious. We're less interested in Kalyani's romantic prospects, however, than with Shakuntala's logical questioning of the underpinnings of her society.

ANDREW SARRIS

- The New York Observer -

Much to my surprise, Water turned out to be not an addled piece of agitprop, as I had feared, but quite possibly the best picture of the year thus far, with no fewer than three of the most luminous female performances I have ever seen onscreen. The institutional horror and spiritual grandeur of the film creep up on you slowly, like the inexorable currents of the Ganges.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xthsoa_aayo-re-sakhi-deepa-mehta-water-2005_music

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpxj1u_water-bande-annonce-vo_shortfilms

For those of you that have seen the film:

• Does Mehta succeed in what she is trying to say without seeming 'preachy.'
• Was this film able to connect with a Western audience on an emotional level without seeming alien?
• Did you see the subplots that didn't include Chuyia as weak?
• What did you think about Narayan's attempt to break the traditional cast system of India?
• Dr. Croteau only: Why has Mehta not been able to capture the emotion of both critics and audiences with anything past Water?