Re: Water- Special Screening to Celebrate International Women’s Day @ U of T
Water Director Deepa Mehta
Source: Laura Blum
April 25, 2006
Deepa Mehta, the Canadian-Indian filmmaker who created Fire and Earth, completes her elemental trilogy with Water. Taking dead aim at 2,000-year old Indian tradition, she follows the ordeals of a 1930s widows ashram in the holy city of Varanasi, including that of its newest eight-year old penitent who dreams of going home. Five years after the Varanasi shoot unleashed Hindu fundamentalist wrath–culminating in set torching and production lockdown–cameras rolled in neighboring Sri Lanka, far from the stomping grounds of creator/destroyer Lord Shiva.
ComingSoon.net caught up with writer/director Deepa Mehta at a recent press roundtable in New York.
ComingSoon.net: Why did you decide to make a film about widows living in a Varanasi ashram?
Deepa Mehta: Eleven years ago I had come in contact with widows in an ashram in Varanasi.
CS: Is that when you were working with George Lucas on his “Young Indiana Jones” series?
Mehta: Yes. My first day…in Varanasi I’d gone there at about 5:30 in the morning because that’s the best time to see the Ganges and the sun rising-it’s stunning-and people are there for their morning prayers. And the steps leading to the river are packed with pilgrims, and all the women wear such beautiful colorful saris, you know, their reds and greens and oranges. And there was this one woman in white-who (elder widow) Patiraji is based on, actually-who was, you know, her back was to the river. Everybody else looks toward the river. She was searching for something. It was a pair of spectacles, I found out…She looked like a shrimp. She was my first interaction with a widow whose hair was shorn who was wearing white…and I went with her to her ashram. I felt the complete apathy in the house when I saw it first. It’s actually what (8-year old widow) Chuyia sees when she sees the ashram for the first time. So somewhere in the back of my mind I had that image.
CS: You had never encountered a widow before then?
Mehta: Growing up in India you hear about the ashrams or the institutions, and my grandmother was a widow, but she was a matriarch and a tyrant and a very different kind of widow. Then to use the widows ashram and the widows in 1938 specifically became the ideal venue to explore the theme, which was about the conflict between conscience and faith.
CS: Why 1938?
Mehta: For a couple of reasons. In 1938 or in the 30s and before that child marriages were prevalent. So that was important. So there were incidents of child widows going to the ashrams and that was important obviously for the protagonist who was 8-year old Chuyia. And the other thing was, I think it was Bunuel, who said that the minute you go special you become universal. So the film for me on many levels is also about the changing fabric of Indian society as exemplified by the growing nationalism in India and the decision to liberate it from Colonial rule.
CS: What inspired you to make your protagonist an 8-year old?
Mehta: A child is unencumbered by prejudgments. The way Chuyia sees the world has no preconceptions. She’s just there as a child who experiences the world.
CS: Are today’s widows ashrams like the one in your movie?
Mehta: It’s started to change, and I’m hopeful. What you don’t see anymore are child widows. And they don’t shave their heads. They have a choice. There’s a great awareness on the part of NGOs to make the widows independent…But many Indians don’t know about (widows). The focus is on software and Bollywood, and what’s positive - and it should be. But it’s also important to understand what happens to these widows and what has been happening for 2,000 years.
CS: Is the traditional treatment of widows a fair interpretation–or a misreading of-ancient Hindu writings?
Mehta: It’s ingrained in a moral code. It’s not Hinduism, it’s Manu-a moral text…Religion is a very easy ploy because it is so easy to use for personal benefit.
CS: How does “Water” link to the themes of “Fire” and “Earth”?
Mehta: “Fire” became about the politics of sexuality. “Earth” was about the politics of sectarian nationalism. And “Water” was about the politics of religion as they apply to women. And using the elements was…because they nurture us; we can’t do without them and yet they can be destructive.
CS: Two days into shooting “Water” in the holy city of Varanasi, a mob of Hindu protesters trashed the set, issued death threats to your cast and crew, burned your effigy and declared you anti-Hindu. What went on in your thoughts?
Mehta: Trying to survive. You’re trying to protect your film and you’re trying to protect your crew. That’s what was paramount in my mind.
CS: What do you tell your detractors who allege you’re soiling the chastity of the Hindu widow?
Mehta: I don’t. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion. It’s a waste of energy to engage them.
CS: That’s so Gandhi! I admire that.
Mehta: It’s a hard lesson to learn.
CS: What was it like going back to the project after so many years?
Mehta: When we were shut down it took four years to resurrect the project. I found myself readdressing why film was important to me. When I picked up “Water” again after five years"-I hadn’t touched the script for four years-I thought, my God! It’s wordy. I saw I could show with images more than with dialogue. So for me that was the big leap, trusting the audience and saying I don’t have to spoonfeed anybody. It was very liberating.
CS: How did shooting in Sri Lanka affect the film, and how was it different from Varanasi?
Mehta: It didn’t affect the script at all. I didn’t try to recreate Varanasi because it’s impossible–because that would take the budget of “King Kong.” It’s a very specific city and you can’t reproduce it, so I reset the film on the Bihar-Bengal border where the Ganges also flows and recreated the temple towns on the Ganges. There are parts where the Varanasi terrain is very much similar to Sri Lanka. The difference of not shooting in Varanasi is that, as I said, it is a beautiful city but it’s so strong that it would have become a character in the film. By not shooting in Varanasi it helped me focus on the characters.
CS: Shakuntala is a devout widow who suffers a crisis of faith. What drew you to her character?
Mehta: The core of (the film) is the conflict between her conscience and her faith. Shakuntala’s redemption comes out of this conflict. This film came about because of my interest in this conflict. And that for me is a subject I’ve been curious about all my life. Especially now in a world that’s becoming increasingly intolerant, it’s very important. So that was the theme. What drives me is curiosity. Curiosity and passion.
CS: Chuyia tells Shakuntala, “You’re angry all the time.” How much of you is in Shakuntala?
Mehta: Not much. There’s me in all the characters, a little bit. Shakuntala is somebody that I can relate to, and somebody that I have great empathy for-and aspire to. Because to break with your faith and listen to your conscience takes an enormous amount of character.
CS: What helped you get through your anger from the original shoot?
Mehta: To put in perspective what had happened and realize that it wasn’t about me. And once I did that it helped dissipate the anger.
CS: Did making “Hollywood/Bollywood” help? (Mehta also made “The Republic of Love” in the interim.)
Mehta: On a different level, “Hollywood/Bollywood” was a great help as well. It was very easy and very life-affirming. But more than that it was trying to understand what had happened.
CS: How did the experience of “Water” change you?
Mehta: Well, it made me less angry! There is something to the statement that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I definitely became more political. When religion is misinterpreted for personal benefit it leads to distortion. It educated me.
CS: Was there ever a moment when you felt Lord Shiva was behind the destruction?
Mehta: Not at all! I’m not so fanciful as that.
CS: With the film’s ill-fated love story between Brahmin Kalyani and widow Narayan, you make winks at Romeo and Juliet–but is your inspiration actually Radha and Krishna?
Mehta: Because the widows generally worship Krishna and Radha, it made perfect sense that the way Kalyani would see Narayan would be as a figure of Krishna…Most of the widows in Varanasi are worshippers of Krishna and…the first question (Kalyani) asks (the eunuch) Gulabi in fact is, “Does Krishna take on human form?” Because for some time that’s what she thinks Narayan is. That’s how she can actually think of having the feelings that she has for him."
CS: A.R. Rahman’s music is so integral to the feel of the movie. Did you ever think to translate the lyrics?
Mehta: No, because you can push the narrative forward by using words or images, and I chose cinematic images.
CS: Did you structure your screenplay on a particular model?
Mehta: I don’t even think like that. I write a treatment; I write a story. Then I transport the story to a script. I think in images so I transpose them to the narrative as I imagine the film I’m going to make.
CS: What do you think happens to Shakuntala?
Mehta: I think Shakuntala goes back to the ashram and tries to make her life better–and continue with her faith.
CS: What do you think happens to Chuyia?
Mehta: I think Chuyia has a great life. Chuyia goes with Narayan on Gandhi’s train-they really did take in children and educate them-and she becomes very ideological and very strong.
CS: How did you find your Chuyia?
Mehta: The main challenge in casting “Water” was looking for Chuyia. That was a real challenge because I looked at about 80 young girls in and around India and in Bombay and in Delhi and even as far away as Calcutta. What was interesting was that most of them have been so influenced by Bollywood and by what we call Indian soaps-those are television series that we have-which emulate Bollywood to such an extent that I think they unconsciously imbibed mannerisms that are so over-the-top, and which I thought, “That would be real hard to undo that.”
CS: In your daughter Devyani Saltzman’s book, “Shooting Water,” she mentions that Nandita Das was your original choice for (beautiful widow) Kalyani. Yet four years later you went with Lisa Ray.
Mehta: I think Nandita was hurt. That’s too bad, because I like her very much…But I was saying earlier that the script hadn’t changed but I had changed. So the way I looked at the character and the way I wanted them to be portrayed was different. I mean I had thought Kalyani should be a very strong character. Nandita is a very strong woman and she exudes strength-and when I looked at the script again after five years I felt it was extremely important that Kalyani should be very vulnerable. I’d worked with Lisa before (in “Hollywood/Bollywood”) and I kept on looking at her face. It’s her vulnerability and her fragility as a person that I felt was so important for Kalyani that (she’s) the kind that would be like a “lotus in dirty water.”
CS: What was it about (Bollywood idol) John Abraham that made you think he was your Narayan?
Mehta: John had done two films at that point and hadn’t become the megastar that he has become now. And the reason I chose him was because of his voice and his eyes. His eyes are so sensitive. I wanted a man who could have that idealism that is so important to Narayan without being a wimp.
CS: John is in your next film, “Komagata Maru.” What draws you to this true story of Sikhs trying to enter Canada in 1914?
Mehta: It’s about the exploration of persecuted people searching for a home, and what happens when that home or refuge is denied to them. Essentially it’s our “Voyage of the Damned.”
CS: Are you a Canadian who comes from India or an Indian who lives in Canada?
Mehta: I’m like Salman (Rushdie), who says, “I refuse to choose!” You can’t, you can’t. I think about it more-and I spend four months a year every year in India. It’s before the plane lands I feel quite Canadian. The minute I get off the gangplank and I smell Delhi, which is where I come from, I just, everything else, Canada fades away. I just sort of walk into it and before you know it I’m wearing my cotton dhotis or saris and my chappals and eating the kind of food that I love to…I still have very good friends there, so I think that’s a beginning. I think the fact that my parents are there is very important. It sort of roots me. I just feel very comfortable there. I forget about being Canadian.
CS: “Fire” sparked violent protests when it was released in India in 1998 and was eventually yanked from distribution. Are you worried about "Water’"s fate?
Mehta: Oh God, I hope not! The film was recently screened in India. It went very well, and it will be released commercially in May…My father’s a film distributor and an exhibitor in India and…he used to say that there are two things you never know about in life: one is when you’re going to die and the other is how a film is going to do.
http://comingsoon.net/news/indietopnews.php?id=14214
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Water opens in New York, Los Angeles and other select cities on Friday, April 28.
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