All religions have inconsistencies within their own laws and delve into the subtle (and not so subtle) manipulation of the population to maintain a sense of control over its followers. In a way, this constitutes a form of cult society, even when the leader is not a crazy person but our own god of choice, dictating ridiculous penances upon people who otherwise have no reason to be under such a predicament.
India has a belief system called the Hindu Laws of Manu. In it, it creates "widows" out of girls who are purportedly the reincarnations of wives whose husband died, and because of this, must life a life in abject poverty, incommunicado with the outside world, maltreated by people in general. Why this occurs can be blamed on the people who abused such laws and decided to use them for their benefits: two of the characters in WATER, a film that vibrates not only color but passions just underneath the surface will question that in their own ways. Shakuntala Didi, a woman who at first seems hovering on only one-note -- bitterness -- and Narayana, the heir of a wealthy family, who has met Mohandas Gandhi (the movie is set in 1938) and has taken in his liberal approach that widows, too, must experience love -- the postulate of tolerance.
While Shakuntala and Narayana meet furtively early in the movie, they don't interact until much later, and the catalyst for this to happen is a little girl named Chuyia, who has been brought to the ashram to live as a widow. She cannot comprehend the scope of the kind of life that awaits her and to see her getting her long hair shaved and her spirits progressively crushed even when she openly defies the prison that surrounds her is painful. Even so, her presence lights up the ashram in more ways than one. Without knowing, she upsets the ordinance of the ashram and suggests the spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction that must be in the minds of people who can't understand why do they have to be the forgotten ones.
Chuyia forges a quick friendship with a young woman named Kalyani and by accident, both meet Narayana, who is taken with Kalyani. What he doesn't know is that she is being pimped to other men who will pay for her services and keep the ashram running by the monstrous Manorma, who runs the ashram like a brothel while preaching the laws of Manu. It's the double-standard of life in the ashram where the story denounces the atrocity of this "law": it forces women into a segregated society while the "prettier" ones are laid out as bait for those who will pay money for them. He and Kalyani do fall in love, but her situation is a barrier more to her than to him because she feels like damaged goods even when in an emotional scene he lets her know she is the one he loves.
But the legacy of abuse is strong, and it now threatens to hover over Chuyia. Shakuntala, who throughout the movie experiences the most character change while barely emoting over her smooth face, dovetails her storyline with Narayana, and in a moment of rebellion underlying a subtle feminism, takes action to ensure that if not for herself, at least for the new generation, there might be some hope. WATER touches some very delicate subject matter at this point, but it's done with so much taste that the horror becomes more real. More so, when realizing that this practice still occurs today, in the 21st Century, and that even though times apparently have changed, they haven't. Even so, WATER is an important film that through its overwhelming beauty and lush setting expresses the casual horror of religious abuse -- a cry against this ultimately inhumane system.
India has a belief system called the Hindu Laws of Manu. In it, it creates "widows" out of girls who are purportedly the reincarnations of wives whose husband died, and because of this, must life a life in abject poverty, incommunicado with the outside world, maltreated by people in general. Why this occurs can be blamed on the people who abused such laws and decided to use them for their benefits: two of the characters in WATER, a film that vibrates not only color but passions just underneath the surface will question that in their own ways. Shakuntala Didi, a woman who at first seems hovering on only one-note -- bitterness -- and Narayana, the heir of a wealthy family, who has met Mohandas Gandhi (the movie is set in 1938) and has taken in his liberal approach that widows, too, must experience love -- the postulate of tolerance.
While Shakuntala and Narayana meet furtively early in the movie, they don't interact until much later, and the catalyst for this to happen is a little girl named Chuyia, who has been brought to the ashram to live as a widow. She cannot comprehend the scope of the kind of life that awaits her and to see her getting her long hair shaved and her spirits progressively crushed even when she openly defies the prison that surrounds her is painful. Even so, her presence lights up the ashram in more ways than one. Without knowing, she upsets the ordinance of the ashram and suggests the spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction that must be in the minds of people who can't understand why do they have to be the forgotten ones.
Chuyia forges a quick friendship with a young woman named Kalyani and by accident, both meet Narayana, who is taken with Kalyani. What he doesn't know is that she is being pimped to other men who will pay for her services and keep the ashram running by the monstrous Manorma, who runs the ashram like a brothel while preaching the laws of Manu. It's the double-standard of life in the ashram where the story denounces the atrocity of this "law": it forces women into a segregated society while the "prettier" ones are laid out as bait for those who will pay money for them. He and Kalyani do fall in love, but her situation is a barrier more to her than to him because she feels like damaged goods even when in an emotional scene he lets her know she is the one he loves.
But the legacy of abuse is strong, and it now threatens to hover over Chuyia. Shakuntala, who throughout the movie experiences the most character change while barely emoting over her smooth face, dovetails her storyline with Narayana, and in a moment of rebellion underlying a subtle feminism, takes action to ensure that if not for herself, at least for the new generation, there might be some hope. WATER touches some very delicate subject matter at this point, but it's done with so much taste that the horror becomes more real. More so, when realizing that this practice still occurs today, in the 21st Century, and that even though times apparently have changed, they haven't. Even so, WATER is an important film that through its overwhelming beauty and lush setting expresses the casual horror of religious abuse -- a cry against this ultimately inhumane system.