| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | WATER (2005) |
| Director | Deepa Mehta |
| Writer | Deepa Mehta, Anurag Kashyap |
| Lead Actor | Lisa Ray |
| Cast | Lisa Ray, John Abraham, Seema Biswas |
| Genre | Drama |
| Release Date | May 26, 2006 (United States) |
| Duration | 1h 57m(117 min) |
| Budget | $350–460 million |
| Language | English |
| IMDB Rating | 7.6/10 |
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Water completes Indian director Deepa Mehta’s trilogy named for earth’s essential elements: Fire (1996) and Earth (1998).
Chuyia (Sarala) is a happy eight year old Hindu girl who has just been married to a much older man. When he dies shortly after, Chuyia is left a widow, without any idea of what this means.
Her father shaves her head and she is left at an ashram, a kind of monastery for widows who, according to Hindu tradition, must never remarry.
Left to the mercy of charity, the women live out their lives in physical or emotional misery. One widow, Kalyani (Lisa Ray), is forced by the lazy head of the house, Madhumati (Manorama), into a life of prostitution to help support the community of widows.
A young Brahmin, Narayana (John Abraham), just home from university and inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, sees the breathtaking Kalyani as she returns from a client. They fall in love. Narayana believes, as does Gandhi, that widows should be allowed to go free and remarry, contrary to religious law and traditions.
One widow, Shakuntala (Seema Biswas), watches over Chuyia and Kalyani as best she can. She seems stern, but is kind and a seeker of truth. She believes in her Hindu faith but begins to question it with her spiritual guide, asking if one must obey religion or conscience.
Water parallels the birth pangs of India’s modern democracy as it tore itself from the colonial dominance of the British and the grip of its own oppressive religious traditions at the same time. Some of the women became bitter and as cruel as the traditions that bound them, others reached a level of holiness as they tried to do what they believed was God’s will.
The story of Chuyia and the other women is told with great sensitivity by director/writer Mehta. The exact number of widows forced into ashrams today is unknown, Mehta attests, but there are many. And some still retire there willingly to pursue an ascetical life after their husbands die.
Mehta, whose other films deal with the politics of war and the politics of sex, clearly makes the point that the search for truth will free us and that justice flows when an upright conscience and sincere faith unite in the soul of a person and a nation. Water is a beautifully rendered, thoughtful film about the politics of religion and is well worth seeing. Mature themes and brief drug use.
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