I saw Fire about a year or so back - primarily motivated by the hype surrounding it and also to view Deepa Mehta’s treatment of a taboo topic.
I have categorized my review into the elemnts of the movie that struck me as worth commenting on.
- Treatment of the story
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There is little doubt that the topic is extremely taboo. Even ’liberal’ individuals do not usually discuss lesbianism. It speaks volumes of Deepa’s courage and conviction to even undertake such a project. That being said, I must admit that the screenplay was quite poor. The dialogue was strained at best and it was difficult to fully comprehend the characters’ motivations from their conversations. Also, a lot of weightage was given to the promiscuous angle of the story (through the servant and Javed Jaffrey’s character) - to the extent that the movie became crude instead of sensual.
- Acting
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Was brilliant. Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi complemented each other. The others filled in the supporting roles to perfection.
- Direction
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I think Deepa Mehta is a very good director, but she does not seem to display the qualities of a brilliant director. She promises a lot, but fails to deliver - in the end I felt as if I was simply seeing a controversial movie, not a brilliant one. Let me elaborate.
The story was one of human relationships - of frustration and love. She admitted as much in her press briefings prior to the movies release.But, I could not fully feel the frustration of the characters, or the love for that matter of fact.The story seemed to be always directed towards sexual frustration - and even the act itself could not be sensually portrayed. Both the lighting and camerawork were amateurish - a brilliant director would have seized this opportunity to create a scene etched in the minds of the Indian population for all times to come.
My Recommendations
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Ask yourself - why do you want to see this movie? Definitely not for the story, cos you must have heard it already.
a. For pleasure - forget it ...go rent a sleazy movie from someplace.
b. To understand and appreciate human emotions - Not worth the effort - the only human emotion discussed at length in this movie is lust.
c. To see the mark of a great director - well, at least u can see how she could have become a brilliant director rather than end up as one whom we discuss in hushed voices. Controversy does not create a brilliant director, its what (s)he does with it. if you want to see brilliant but controversial works of art, see Kubrik , Kurosawa and Scorsese - not Deepa Mehta.
d. just to see a ’different’(or controversial or taboo or insert-ur-own-adjective) movie - well, u got me there...this indeed seems to be the only reason I would recommend seeing this movie.