The Devil You Know
Let me start off by saying that Water does not, in any single frame, look like a movie that was shot in secret and shut down for several years due to protests. It's gorgeously shot and composed, with almost every shot looking perfect, like a painting. And perhaps that's its weakness.
An 8 year-old girl, Sarala, finds out that she's a widow when her husband dies and she's sent to live in an ashram to spend the remainder of her life in poverty and loneliness, surrounded only by fellow widows with their shaved heads and self-denial. Now, a child in a movie cannot and will not be struck down by the hand fate has dealt them, and she manages to touch and change some of those living with her. One of these middle-aged widows who eventually comes to doubt her beliefs and that of society has a really compelling story, and she's played exceptionally well. The main focus of the film though, lies in a forbidden romance between a beautiful widow (conveniently, the only one who's allowed to keep her hair because she's being pimped out) and an upper-class young idealist.
Even though that particular story thread is formulaic enough, the portrayals and handling thankfully never descend to cheap melodrama, and it also helps that the actress Lisa Ray is bloody gorgeous. I know I had a hard time keeping my eyes off the screen, and winced when she had her pretty locks shorn off by a vindictive old bitch.
Formula is formula though, and at the end I felt the film could have been a lot stronger had it explored the stories of some of those other women a little deeper. There's a lot of talking about the caste system and how changes are happening in society; I just wished most of it didn't come from the mouths of idealistic students proclaiming their philosophies to all and sundry. The biggest impact, I felt, came from the women who were being oppressed, yet chose to live in oppression because of their beliefs. They couldn't envision a different world, and even if they could, that would've completely destroyed their belief system and brought their worldview crumbling down around them. Isn't that the greatest tragedy of all, when victims believe that they should be victimized, that they deserve to be victimized? And widening this allegory, isn't this also true of the public at large in certain so-called "democracies"?
I could also go on about the use of water (duh!) as a Symbol, but it's been many years since I last wrote a literature paper. I guess I'll just stick to the tech stuff then. Perhaps a rawer shooting style could've helped in conveying its message. As it is, the film is very good, but feels just a little too slick to have enormous resonance. You can't fault it for trying though, and for the most part, it does work pretty well.
Addendum: I saw this at GV Vivocity, and the print was awful, with lots of scratches. Shame on you. "Singapore's No. 1 Movie Destination" indeed.
An 8 year-old girl, Sarala, finds out that she's a widow when her husband dies and she's sent to live in an ashram to spend the remainder of her life in poverty and loneliness, surrounded only by fellow widows with their shaved heads and self-denial. Now, a child in a movie cannot and will not be struck down by the hand fate has dealt them, and she manages to touch and change some of those living with her. One of these middle-aged widows who eventually comes to doubt her beliefs and that of society has a really compelling story, and she's played exceptionally well. The main focus of the film though, lies in a forbidden romance between a beautiful widow (conveniently, the only one who's allowed to keep her hair because she's being pimped out) and an upper-class young idealist.
Even though that particular story thread is formulaic enough, the portrayals and handling thankfully never descend to cheap melodrama, and it also helps that the actress Lisa Ray is bloody gorgeous. I know I had a hard time keeping my eyes off the screen, and winced when she had her pretty locks shorn off by a vindictive old bitch.
Formula is formula though, and at the end I felt the film could have been a lot stronger had it explored the stories of some of those other women a little deeper. There's a lot of talking about the caste system and how changes are happening in society; I just wished most of it didn't come from the mouths of idealistic students proclaiming their philosophies to all and sundry. The biggest impact, I felt, came from the women who were being oppressed, yet chose to live in oppression because of their beliefs. They couldn't envision a different world, and even if they could, that would've completely destroyed their belief system and brought their worldview crumbling down around them. Isn't that the greatest tragedy of all, when victims believe that they should be victimized, that they deserve to be victimized? And widening this allegory, isn't this also true of the public at large in certain so-called "democracies"?
I could also go on about the use of water (duh!) as a Symbol, but it's been many years since I last wrote a literature paper. I guess I'll just stick to the tech stuff then. Perhaps a rawer shooting style could've helped in conveying its message. As it is, the film is very good, but feels just a little too slick to have enormous resonance. You can't fault it for trying though, and for the most part, it does work pretty well.
Addendum: I saw this at GV Vivocity, and the print was awful, with lots of scratches. Shame on you. "Singapore's No. 1 Movie Destination" indeed.
Labels: review
posted by cinewhore @ 2:09 AM
3 mindfucks
3 Comments:
Strangely enough, I did not find the story formulaic. And my mom, and her bollywood loving buddies, cried a lot at it and saw it multiple times. Um, it resonated with them. And they're probably the people who have been most exposed to the story of the downtrodden Indian widow. And I took a class at NU that was pretty much on that subject, and I was still pretty affected. (Water is based on a book by Bapsi Sidwha, who wrote another book called Ice Candy Man, which was the basis for a well-known-among-mom's-friends deepa mehta film called Earth).
So my guess is, the closer to home this formulaic-or-just-common story is, the more affecting the film was. But I was not distracted by what's her name's or john abraham's prettyness.
On another note, I find watching cows be slaughtered pretty gross, too. So maybe I'm just easily disheartened.
I meant that the romance thread was pretty formulaic, not the whole thing. And I do agree about the whole "closer to home having more emotional resonance" thing. That's definitely true, and I've had many such experiences with Singapore films.
I saw this a few months back, and cried and cried at the end of the movie--I was also a little traumatized. What a beautiful film. A little heavy handed with the metaphor, but this was one in a series of "elemental" films by the director. What a cute little child actress! I just wanted to bite her!
gimme some mindfuckery
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