Water

Taking a couple of steps back - or in writer-director Deepa Mehta’s case, relocating to Canada - often gives you a clearer and more complete impression of a place or a situation. Following the impressive movies Bollywood/Hollywood and Earth - this weighty study of a third world problem was grounded in a very earthly lack of funds and ''solved'' with a pretence of religious dedication and piety which surely would have been hard to fund with sole Indian financing. The widowed women, who for reasons of economy are relocated by their dead husbands and families to a dirt poor existence within a Hindu temple, are common victims in a society where pity leads nowhere and piety goes all the way. It is to Mehta’s credit - as well as to a cast led by Mehta’s regular star Lisa Ray - that she can give the widows, and the temple staff looking after them, faces and voices that are singularly individual and personal. Water is a tract grounded not so much in feminism as in humanism, showing that a director looking back in time as well as place can show a way into another future.JAN ELVSÉN

Premiärstatus
Europeisk premiär: Medverkande
Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, John Abraham: Producent
David Hamilton: Manus
Deepa Mehta, Anurag Kashyrap: Foto
Giles Nuttgens: Musik
Mychael Danna & A.R Rahman: Talat språk
Hindi