This is not one of the greatest movies. It is really one "writ on water." I applaud the mettle shown by Mehta in completing Water in Sri Lanka after the nuisance created by hooligans in Banaras. I appreciate that she has made a movie on the issue of widowhood in pre-independent India. By doing that she has also struck at some of the cruel traditions of Hinduism. But I am sure Bimal Roy, Satyajit Ray and many other Indian directors would have been able to make a better movie. Pity that Ray could get an Oscar only for the whole of his work. Mehta might get it for Water alone!
Water shows the terrible ironies and anomalies of the pre-independence Hindu society in the 1930s. Chuhiya, a child widow ends up one fine morning at a widow house where toys, games, friends and relatives can only be dreamt of. We enter the dark world of the widow houses where there is no possibility of joy and dignity in life or even in death.
These widows are women ostracized by the male-dominated, tradition-bound society. Ironically, they are considered easy meat for consumption by those very people who ostracize them, often forcing them into prostitution, as is Kalyani. Kalyani (Lisa) is one of the inmates there. The parallel plot shows her story, a love budding between her and Narayan (John). But even the saviour fails to save her. The plot starts with Chuhiya, passes on to Kalyani and comes back at the end to Chuhiya, she landing in safe hands.
I know that there are people who will devour Water , drinking the juices from its each morsel, intending to drink in India or knowledge about it. But Water misses its mark at several places; it can fire our minds but fails to stand on firm earth at certain places. There is a lavish sprinkling of India but often things do not seem homogenized through. I can point out many faults and I am sure other people with better knowledge about India and Hinduism can point out many more.Consider these: one widow talks of ’gulabjamuns’ and ’rasgullas’ both served at her wedding ( unusual, I would say); one scene shows funeral pyres burning while a marriage ceremony is going on nearby, on the same ghat (incongrous), in one scene the Swastika has anti-clockwise arms (it should be the other way); widows sing "tick-tock" in one scene ( a Western onamotopoeia, not Indian, at least not then); John uses a ballpen ( I think fountain pens were used in India in 1930s); ’sala’ is translated as ’bastard’ in the subtitles (no better option?). In fact, a lot many liberties have been taken with the vernacular. John uses Hindi, English, and Sanskrit in the same breath. Urdu and Hindi words are used in unison, which seems unusual in terms of consistency, for one thing. At one point John says to Lisa, expected to be an illiterate widow (certainly not expected to know any English in the 1930s) "Calcutta main naukri ke liye **APPLY **kar raha hoon". Another mistake Deepa has done is with the selection of the main actors. John and Lisa both don’t look Indian, don’t sound Indian. Their pronunciations and accents are not upto the mark. The larger blame goes to Lisa. I like both of them otherwise. Other actors--Waheeda Rehman, Kulbhushan, Raghubir Yadav, Seema Biswas--have done well what they were required to. Deepa Mehta has not done well as a scriptwriter. One mistake the NRI movie makers often make in making movies about India is not portraying it with full understanding. This is all the more necessary while making a period film. The movie also fails to give any positive message and ends in an escapism. It can convince many people into believing that it is a naturalistic-realistic kind of art film which it is to some extent but it also is less realistic than ’Pather Panchali’ though more realistic than Shahrukh’s ’Ashoka.’ I accept that I am evaluating Deepa Mehta a bit harshly but one contending for an Oscar should be ready to face the facts and music and fire.