Watercompletes Deepa Mehta's elements trilogy in real style, writes Donald Clarke
IF you were feeling unkind, you might point out that Water, a nominee for the best foreign language feature at this year's Oscars, is just the sort of film that dubious honour regularly falls upon. It focuses on the adventures of a child. It makes something beautiful and exotic out of poverty. It allows its protagonist an unlikely escape from that elegant wretchedness. All that's missing is a friendly puppy.
Oops, we spoke too soon. Here comes Fido.
That cynical reservation noted, Water, the third film in Deepa Mehta's elements trilogy, emerges as a profoundly moving, gorgeously composed meditation on the historic and continuing atrocities perpetrated against many widows in Hindu society. If the film is to be believed, girls as young as eight can be married off to strangers and, on the distant spouse's death, find themselves transported to ashrams where, heads shaved and dressed in characteristic robes, they face a life of drab isolation or, worse, prostitution.
Mehta, born in Amritsar, though currently based in Canada, endured death threats from religious conservatives while making her first attempt to shoot Water in India.
Eventually, following riots, the set was burnt to the ground and it was a further five years before she was able to resume production in Sri Lanka. If nothing else, the film should thus be respected as the manifestation of a brave and compassionate artist.
Fortunately it also tells a story worth hearing. The film's eyes and ears belong to young Chuya (Sarala). Dispatched to the House of Widows before her ninth birthday, the imaginative child quickly makes an enemy of the enormous tyrant who runs the place and a friend of the younger, kinder Kalyani (Lisa Ray).
It is 1938 and Ghandi is beginning to spread more humanistic philosophies about the country, but, as one sceptical holy man remarks, "we ignore the laws that don't benefit us." The new statute allowing widows to marry has not yet been relayed to Kalyani and her friends.
One is, at such points, inevitably reminded of the Catholic Church's frequent disregard for the civil authorities in Ireland and of Peter Mullan's sickeningly powerful treatment of that subject in The Magdalene Sisters.
Water, illuminated by the golden light of the subcontinent, is a less oppressive piece of work than Mullan's, but Mehta's burning anger at the treatment of women permeates even the most gentle sequences.
Escape does, however, appear possible for Kalyani. The young woman, whose unshaven head betrays misuse as a prostitute, falls in love with a liberal doctor (John Abraham), who, defying the outrage of his mother, agrees to take her as his wife. The awareness that Chuya will grow up in a new independent India adds a further stripe of optimism to the film's middle section.
In truth, though truly terrible things happen in Water, their emotional effect is somewhat diminished by Mehta's constant search for beauty and balance. The gorgeous score by Mychael Danna would not seem out of place in an Anthony Minghella film and Giles Nuttgens's cinematography could easily be used to sell Sri Lanka as a tourist destination.
Never mind. The terrible truth of the characters' situation and the consistently sincere performances from all concerned - young Sarala in particular has a heartbreaking openness - help deliver a cinematic experience of notable power. The saddest moment comes with a closing title explaining that, for all the changes in Indian society, such things do still happen today. Pay attention.
