About a decade ago, Indian born filmmaker Deepa Mehta directed 'Fire'. This film is about a young lady marrying into a lower middle class Delhi family. Her husband is a sleazy git who is passionately in louvv with his Tibetan/Chinese girlfriend and makes no bones about it. His elder brother runs the family business, a local take out restaurant where everyone in the house works. Said elder brother is a devotee of some kind of guru who preaches celibacy... and he practices it! Needless to say, elder bro's wife is a terribly unhappy, deprived woman. And now, so is the younger woman. Inevitably perhaps, with no remaining choices in their barren, loveless lives, they find solace in each others' arms. Oh, my, did I say the magic word.. lesbians??
Anyway, quite expectedly, the film drew intense flak from right wingers in India. And Deepa Mehta flew higher in the adoring eyes of her western audiences with each new ridiculously profane remark made by the likes of Bal Thackerey.
But why this discussion... well, yesterday, I had invited a few people to come over to see this film. As it turned out, of the people invited; the blokes copped out, and so it ended up with me being the only standard bearer of the evil Indian Hindu patriarchy around. Now, allow me to explain again, why this entire thing happened: I am a huge fan of Nandita Das (younger bride in the film). Enough said. Well, go look at my post on 1947 Earth. I wanted to see how my accurate my memories of seeing this film at the theatre ten years or so earlier were.
As I see it now, the film carries an important social message: it is no secret that homosexuality exists in India: anyone who claims otherwise is being foolish.. kind of like that Iranian premier. Whether gay people are persecuted in India is the second question: much of our penal code comes over from the fairly Victorian British way of seeing things: hence the answer is 'yes'. True also that many Indian women are unfortunate enough to live in unfulfilled marriages: but that is something that cuts both ways.
The one important factor to note is that Deepa Mehta's direction is terribly unsubtle.. it is utterly ham handed. And did she not pay any money to the composer, Rehman? All of the soundtrack is recycled from previous Rehman films. And it works badly: the music is often loud and overwhelming.. it tells you what you are supposed to feel. Actually, more like shouts it down at you. Bottom line: the film has almost no merit as a film alone: and this is something that I would be inclined to blame the director for.. the actors are very highly talented, they have not been well used. Here a few points of view on this film.
Anyway, quite expectedly, the film drew intense flak from right wingers in India. And Deepa Mehta flew higher in the adoring eyes of her western audiences with each new ridiculously profane remark made by the likes of Bal Thackerey.
But why this discussion... well, yesterday, I had invited a few people to come over to see this film. As it turned out, of the people invited; the blokes copped out, and so it ended up with me being the only standard bearer of the evil Indian Hindu patriarchy around. Now, allow me to explain again, why this entire thing happened: I am a huge fan of Nandita Das (younger bride in the film). Enough said. Well, go look at my post on 1947 Earth. I wanted to see how my accurate my memories of seeing this film at the theatre ten years or so earlier were.
As I see it now, the film carries an important social message: it is no secret that homosexuality exists in India: anyone who claims otherwise is being foolish.. kind of like that Iranian premier. Whether gay people are persecuted in India is the second question: much of our penal code comes over from the fairly Victorian British way of seeing things: hence the answer is 'yes'. True also that many Indian women are unfortunate enough to live in unfulfilled marriages: but that is something that cuts both ways.
The one important factor to note is that Deepa Mehta's direction is terribly unsubtle.. it is utterly ham handed. And did she not pay any money to the composer, Rehman? All of the soundtrack is recycled from previous Rehman films. And it works badly: the music is often loud and overwhelming.. it tells you what you are supposed to feel. Actually, more like shouts it down at you. Bottom line: the film has almost no merit as a film alone: and this is something that I would be inclined to blame the director for.. the actors are very highly talented, they have not been well used. Here a few points of view on this film.
- http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECIToutpouringsframeset.htm
- http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/30/fire.html
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/fire-m02_prn.shtml
- http://www.sawnet.org/news/fire.html
For someone who aspires to the highest standards of filmmaking (read Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen), Mehta has a lot to learn and a really long way to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment