Rarely do I watch movies that move me. Sure, movies take me out of my own reality and into the “reality” of skinny girls and powerful men, but rarely do they put me in the reality of someone else, someone real, someone not glamorized, not edited, and not fictionalized. But the movie “Water” took me completely out of my own reality. It was very different from traditional movies and even traditional documentaries, and I felt a strange mix of melancholic but tranquil emotions after watching it.
I never thought about who makes the movies until I stepped into this class. Of course I knew majority of media was ruled by men – because honestly, the amount of women objectification should give you an idea of who controls media – but I didn’t realize that the movies I saw, which not always objectified women, were made by men too. So at first I just wanted to discuss how this movie explained the experience of a young widow in a genuine light, not glamorized, nor extremely poverty-stricken. When I went to do further research on the movie I was so happy to see that a women directed it.
Deepa Mehta is a Toronto-based director known for the Elements Trilogy: Fire, Earth, and Water. The film “Water” semi-epitomizes this notion of gynocriticism discussed by Maggie Humm in “Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film”. The film “involves a separate female way of thinking, and a recognition that women’s experience has been effecticly silenced by masculine culture” (Humm 95).
Humm delves into the separating of Author and Auteur in which the author is the one who writes the story but the auteur is the one who creates the story, gives it emotions and live, the auteur is the director. I felt that a story about a widow could go in so many directions. It can be completely scrutinizing of the culture in Indian rural area, it can be over emphasizing the religion’s elements involved, the story may remain the same but the director can change our perspective. Deepa Mehta however gives us a very unique eye. We see the tragedy, we see the confusion, we don’t understand this new style of living the same way the little girl doesn’t understand what fate that was thrust upon her. But we also see the patriarchy, we understand how tradition plays into this concept of widow, we see love, we see friendship, we see brutality, and we also see joy. It is not a one sided film to bring forth a horrible hardship. It does not end with her being free and being married and a happily ever after. It was simply her journey – with the good and the bad.
Deepa Mehta says that “All art is political, it's not personal. Somehow it reflects on the politics of our time. I don't see myself as carrying a placard with a message in my films. What motivates me are the stories.” During the making of Water, Mehta went through many obstacles. And these aren’t obstacles of funding but obstacles in which the people of india threatened to take her life – all over her filmmaking. “A party, Raksha Sangharsh Samiti (RSS) formed overnight specifically targeting Mehta. The KSRSS claimed themselves as the guardians of the culture of Varanasi and threatened her with violence. The RSS claimed that the world did not need to hear the problems of the widows in India and argued that Mehta has been poisoned by western influences and was simply looking for a story to sell (Yuen-Carrucan). The government intervened and let her produce the film at a different location. Deepa faced so much backlash for her other films, particularly that regarding sexuality in “Fire”. Hindu fundamentalists pressured the government to ban the film “due to it’s lesbian content and it’s commentary on the rights of women” (NYTimes).
A lot of the female directors I admire are actually from Toronto. I used have this “American pride, Canadian is dull” attitude, and when I went to Canada I actually still felt the same way; their water sucks, their train system is only two train lines, and they have little coins called loonies and toonies – like huh? But then I realized how women there are respected on another level. As a hijabi living in New York City, I’ve gotten very strange stares. To the point where I would feel so uncomfortable wearing it – that I would take it off. I’ve walked around without a hijab feeling accepted, feeling as if people felt more welcome to talk to me. But in Toronto I was actually wearing full burqa (head to toe in black) and I felt comfortable. I felt completely in place because there were so many hijabis in Toronto. At hunter, I feel comfortable because there are enough of us hijabis and we have our own little community. But when I step outside, walking around Times Square becomes almost strange.
I’m getting side tracked -- There’s a Canadian sitcom aired on CBC, “Little Mosque On the Prairie” which I discovered online and fell utterly in love with! It has a Muslim hijabi feminist whose father is Muslim and mother is a new convert who isn’t practicing. She is very active in the community and the show is adorable and funny and deals with a local mosque being shut down and then the mosque moving inside a church and the quarrels between community members both muslim v. nonmuslim and extremists v. modern muslim. Little did I know, it was created by a Pakistani woman, Zarqa Nawaz. Seriously though, why does Canada have all the best directors?
Here's a clip from the show when one of the characters doesn't want to wear hijab but her very conservative father is trying to make her wear it so this is her rebellion. Hilarious.
The whole show is on hulu. Can't wait to rewatch it all during the summer. :)
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