Water (Certificate Unknown / NA)

Both films are historical, colorful and deeply subtle. But Fire, the first part of the trilogy, was inlaid with a certain cultural-shock value and any political message that Mehta's intended evoke was lost in the heated controversy. Water testifies to Mehta's maturity as a filmmaker. And it places Mehta among the most eminent film personalities in the Indian cinema such as Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, and to some extent Satyajit Ray.

Water received an extremely hostile reaction during its production in India. Mehta's sets in the sacred Hindu city of Varanasi were burned and she was subjected to harassment and death threats, which led to the stalling of the shooting on several occasions. Subsequently, Mehta moved her entire production unit to Sri Lanka. As Mehta recounts of the making of Water in an interview to The Hindu "in the year of 2000, armed with the requisite permissions and script approval from the government of India, the crew of Water assembled in Varanasi. After six weeks of pre-production, we started to shoot on the banks of the river Ganges. Two days into the shoot, what transpired next was unexpected and unprecedented. As Mehta's recounts the events in an interview "overnight, violent protests by Hindu fundamentalists erupted in the city. Accusations of Water being anti-Hindu were cited as the cause of the film sets being thrown in the river, my effigy being burned, and protesters marching in the streets of Varanasi, denouncing the film and its portrayal of Hindu widows." It is ironic of the Hindu activists who accused Mehta of "anti-Indian" and "anti-Hindu" that Water is poignant tale of India's evolution to modernity, self-determination as well as anti-colonial oppression.

Water is set in colonial India when the practice of child marriage was fatally endemic. When men died, widows were sent to widow homes regardless of their age. The widow homes had little or no connection with men or the outside world in general as they were sanctified by strict religious codes and ascetic principles of Hinduism. Widow re-marriages were banned by Vedic law.

Water opens with vivid images of tumbledown buildings huddled against the shores of Ganges in Varanasi, as eight-year-old widow Chuyia is being left in a widow home by her parents. Kalyani (Lisa Ray), another young widow, is forced into prostitution by Madhumati (Manorma) - the matriarch of the home. Shakuntala (Seema Biswas) is one of the many widows sharing the household.

Narayan (John Abraham) falls for Kalyani at first sight. A follower of Gandhian nationalism and the Hindu reformist movement led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Narayan leads Kalyani into a woeful death-trap. But Madhumati has different plans as her evil eyes are cast upon the eight-year old Chuyia. The rest of the story revolves around Shakuntala's attempts to save Chuyia's from her ill-fated voyage.

In spite of tragedy and death Water leaves you not depressed but moved, filled with beauty, and subtle radiance of life and hope. The film evokes the intimate relationship between tradition and change in a world which is closed and often concealed to itself. We see the ruins of an old and beautiful civilization but also the fickleness of those who appreciate change less and less. The raw and crude realism of the Hindu life in Varanasi evokes the memory of one of the greatest films in film history - Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali. Of course, Water's journey hasn't been easy, but finally very moving and full of hope. In Mehta's work, the searching intelligence, the poignant spirit and impeccable eye of the camera meet the eternal dialectics of life and death in India. It takes not an artistic eye but merely a penetrating eye to make a movie like Water.