Elements trilogy
Elements trilogy | |
---|---|
Directed by | Deepa Mehta |
Written by | Deepa Mehta |
Produced by | Deepa Mehta |
Cinematography | Giles Nuttgens |
Edited by | Barry Farrell Colin Monie |
Music by | A.R. Rahman Mychael Danna |
Production company | Deepa Mehta Films |
Countries | Canada India |
Languages | Hindi English |
The Elements trilogy of films by
Some notable actors that have worked in Mehta's Elements trilogy include
Fire (1996)
The first film in the series, Fire (1996), is set in contemporary India. It was a highly controversial film among certain conservative quarters in India due to the portrayal of lesbian characters.[4]
Earth (1998)
Water (2005)
The final film in the trilogy,
Controversy
Mehta had originally intended to direct
The resulting tensions meant that Mehta struggled for many years to make Water and was eventually forced to make it in Sri Lanka rather than India.[5] She eventually made the film, with a new cast, and a fake title used during filming (River Moon) in 2003. The struggle to make the film was detailed in a non-fiction book, Shooting Water: A Mother-Daughter Journey and the Making of the Film, written by Mehta's daughter, author Devyani Saltzman (whose father is Canadian producer and director Paul Saltzman, son of pioneering Canadian weather forecaster Percy Saltzman).[5]
Critical responses to Mehta's work surfaced also during the release of Fire in 1998 because members of the Hindu Shiv Sena party felt it was an attack on Hindu tradition and the institution of marriage. Members of the party engaged in mass protests against the film at cinemas in Mumbai and Delhi. Following the film's premiere, Mehta travelled across Europe and North America for almost a year while being constantly guarded by police. Mehta and others staged counterdemonstrations to stop the film from being censored, including feminists who disagreed with the movie for different reasons (see "Criticism").[6]
Criticism
Indian feminist authors Mary E. John and Tejaswini Niranjana argued in 1999 that Fire reduces patriarchy to the denial and control of
Control of female sexuality is surely one of the ideological planks on which patriarchy rests. But by taking this idea literally, the film imprisons itself in the very ideology it seeks to fight, its own version of authentic reality being nothing but a mirror image of patriarchal discourse. Fire ends up arguing that the successful assertion of sexual choice is not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition—indeed, the sole criterion—for the emancipation of women. Thus the patriarchal ideology of 'control' is first reduced to pure denial—as though such control did not also involve the production and amplification of sexuality—and is later simply inverted to produce the film's own vision of women's liberation as free sexual 'choice'. (Economic and Political Weekly, March 6–13, 1999)
Other critics have argued that Mehta overlooks the complex politics of post-colonial India in her films, particularly when she portrays supposedly oppressed women and confirms Orientalist stereotypes about the exotic and "strange" nature of Indian culture, as in her film Water. Some critics have suggested that in the current geo-political context of imperialism which often relies on narratives of "saving women" (e.g. the U.S. War on Terror utilizing the supposedly oppressed Muslim woman narrative to morally justify war), Mehta's characters are too easily read by the audience as passive victims who need to be saved rather than agents in their own history.[7]
Madhu Kishwar, then-editor of Manushi, wrote a highly critical review of Fire, finding fault with the depiction of the characters in the film as a "mean-spirited caricature of middle class family life among urban Hindus". She claimed that homosexuality was socially accepted in India as long as it remained a private affair, adding that Mehta "did a disservice to the cause of women […] by crudely pushing the Radha-Sita relationship into the lesbian mould", as women would now be unable to form intimate relationships with other women without being branded as lesbians.[8]
References
- ^ "Rotten Tomatoes Review: Fire". Rotten Tomatoes. 1996. Retrieved 6 May 2007.
- ^ "Rotten Tomatoes Review: 1947 - Earth". Rotten Tomatoes. 1998. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 6 May 2007.
- ^ "Rotten Tomatoes Review: Water". Rotten Tomatoes. 2005. Retrieved 6 May 2007.
- ^ "www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/news/fire.html". Archived from the original on 19 July 2008.
- ^ a b c Yuen-Carrucan, Jasmine; Yuen-Carrucan, Jasmin (April 2000). "The Politics of Deepa Mehta's Water". Bright Lights Film Journal. Archived from the original on 2 January 2013. Retrieved 23 August 2008.
- ^ "www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/fire.html".
- ^ "www.sevenoaksmag.com/commentary/81_comm4.html". Archived from the original on 16 May 2008.
- ^ Kishwar, Madhu. "Naive Outpourings of a Self-Hating Indian: Deepa Mehta’s Fire"[permanent dead link], Manushi, 1 January 1998. Accessed 15 March 2008.