Reviews

Water

Feminist at its core

By TOM MEEK | May 10, 2006

3.0 Stars

Water
Water

The final chapter in Deepa Mehta’s “elemental trilogy” has much to do with the cleansing substance of the title, the grand river Ganges and purity of spirit, yet at its core it’s a feminist anthem. It’s set in 1938, when Gandhi was beginning to defy the colonial Brits and widows were held as outcasts — a notch above whores — and forced to live an existence of self-denial. Such is the fate of seven-year-old Chuyia (Sarala), the victim of an arranged marriage, and Kalyani (the stunning Lisa Ray), a dour siren at the height of her womanhood. The two bond inside a languid ashram and launch their own form of defiance. Kalyani even dares to love. In making the film, Mehta endured her own form of persecution: virulent protests from Hindu fundamentalists forced her to complete the project in another country. With harrowing turns, a remarkable performance by Saralam and Giles Nuttgens’s opulent cinematography, Water nearly enters the realm of Jafar Panahi’s The Circle and the subtle yet rebellious early works of Zhang Yimou.

Related: Emasculation proclamation, Te Doy Mis Ojos | Take My Eyes, Loners, More

Emasculation proclamation
Though the press and Barack Obama supporters often maintain the opposite, by the rough-and-tumble standards of American politics, Hillary Clinton really hasn’t run that tough a campaign against the Illinois senator.
Te Doy Mis Ojos | Take My Eyes
Born as much from her 2000 20-minute short “Amores que matan|Loves That Kill” as from her love for the films of Ken Loach, director and co-writer Icíar Bollaín’s acute, (almost) thoughtful look at domestic abuse details the struggles of housewife Pilar and her time-bomb husband, Antonio.
Loners
What do you give an audience after The Goat , Edward Albee’s 2002 Tony winner about a prize-winning architect sexually bewitched by an animal?
ID Check: Chelsea Spear
Chelsea Spear grew up in Medford, back when it was strictly a working-class enclave known largely for “big hair, Spandex, and KISS-108,” so she understands the injuries of class.
Repro on the Red Line
Safe sex just got a little easier for women in Cambridge and Somerville, who won’t have to go quite as far for birth control, emergency contraception, or testing for pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.
Back in the USSR
Gulag is the Russian acronym for the government agency that administered the famously harsh system of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union, but it has come to refer more generally to that system of prisons and detention facilities.
Letters to the Portland editor, May 23 2008
Social studies III
Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman , subtitled A Mexican Medea, is an attempt to incorporate pre-Hispanic La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) mythology with a quasi-contemporary tale of the Greek tragic figure, seen through a feminist lesbian lens.
Controlling birth
Not surprisingly, I am searching for yet another birth control pill that doesn’t wreck my life.
You wear it well
The relationship between our bodies and our clothing is, of course, intimate.
Tackling the issues
When Sarah Palin’s interviews with Katie Couric first aired, people rushed to defend or condemn her. But one man opted for the blitz package instead.
Less

Topics: Reviews , Special Interest Groups, Zhang Yimou, Women's Issues, More

| More

Friends' Activity

Popular

Most Viewed

See more deals

view all

[ 02/13 ] "Aphrodite and the Gods of Love" @ Museum of Fine Arts

[ 02/13 ] "Processes and Dreams" @ Panopticon Gallery

[ 02/13 ] "Artists' Books: Books by Artists" @ Boston Athenæum

ARTICLES BY TOM MEEK

REVIEW: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING | January 24, 2012
The Underworld series got long in the tooth early, but here, in the fourth installment (directed by Swede Måns Mårlind), it grows new fangs.

REVIEW: JOYFUL NOISE | January 10, 2012
There's not much joy but there's plenty of noise of the rafter-rocking gospel singing variety in Tony Graff's musical dramedy.

REVIEW: IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY | January 05, 2012
Jolie has loosely reworked the story of Romeo and Juliet in an infamous setting familiar from CNN but here seen from the inside.

REVIEW: ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED | December 13, 2011
For 50 years, Alvin and the Chipmunks have been driving parents nuts with their helium-infused banter and shrill bastardizations of pop music.

REVIEW: TRESPASS | October 13, 2011
If Rod Lurie's errant remake of Straw Dogs didn't tickle your morbid fear of home invasion, then perhaps the latest from Joel Schumacher ( Falling Down ) might do the job.

See all articles by: TOM MEEK

Reviews

Water

Review: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Live Action

Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Animated

Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Documentary

Review: The Woman in Black