Deepa Mehta’s trilogy- Fire, Earth, and Water.
Deepa Mehta’s trilogy- Fire, Earth, Water foreground numerous ways in which women are constructed as the bearers of identities that serve the meaning and purpose of others, even if those identities are located in the patriarchal nationalist discourse which legitimizes violence against women bodies through different social and cultural regimes which are deeply interconnected. The films unveil the power relation among social forces such as colonialism, post-colonial nationalism, and patriarchal heteronormative discourses. Through the analysis of the experiences of the women portrayed in the film, I posit that the nation formation, in terms of tradition, identity is gendered in ways that construct the image of an Indian woman as a site of nationalist ideology both physically and symbolically which provokes their liberation, agency, and self-representation. Mehta’s film distorts these contemporary norms and practices through the depiction of women’s experiences, identities, sexualities, and the ways in which the women resist domination and violence through daily narratives. The film addresses the violence enacted on women in three sets of; historical time frames, socio-cultural locations, and political contexts. Despite the wide differences, there is an overlapping interest in the films on the exploitation of women’s bodies in both physical and symbolic sense.
Water and earth depict the ways through which women’s bodies are constructed as the ground on which the anti-colonial nationalism freely claimed their liberation. Fire portrays the formation of national tradition and identity in the name of authentic past and tradition. The Indian patriarchy created by the political and social changed in contemporary India which can be seen in the movie Fire, it depicts the radical change in the articulation of homoerotic desire and sexuality of women. It forced women to come back to the traditional place of restoration of the pure Indian culture and female identity. In this aspect, Mehta’s portrayal, of the cultural violence enacted on the lives of Indian women is affected by the discourse of past and strict tradition continuously promoted by the patriarchal and regional nationalism in post-colonial India.
Mehta’s films demonstrate that identity and culture cannot be articulated in one single definition. She shows the ruptures in the identities that undergo a radical transformation in the given circumstances and histories. The transcultural relationship is identified in Fire through the Chinese characters and the ideas of modernization which is affected by hatred and rage. However, the difference between Indian cultures gets represented with complexity when Mehta shows the various level of social distinction such as gender, ethnicity, caste, religion, and sexuality. For instance, Mundu’s character depicts the power relation between the middle class and the working-class people of India. On a similar note, Mehta shows the diverse ethnic and religious identities on Earth. The depiction of the Parsee family, Lenny’s playmate Pappu’s marginalized social position which creates the social difference among the group comprised of different social, ethnic, and religious backgrounds- all these are the ways in which Mehta suggests the diverse and heterogeneous background.
The film breaks the hegemonic discourse to portray women as victims by portraying their empowerment and subjectivity through daily activities. Their homoerotic desire, sexuality, and heterogenous identities contest with the patriarchal discourses in numerous ways. The way the female protagonist responds to the patriarchal violence and domination is indirect which makes it complex. For example, in Water, Mehta suggests a widow’s resistance by building the community through the common sense of imagination, stories, and dreams despite their poverty and hardship.
The essential element in Mehta’s film is that she depicts the widow’s agency situated in social and cultural context during the anti-colonial reformist movement in India. Rather than delineating the widow’s victimization, she depicts the way in which the widows intervene with the cultural and social normative discourses and the ways in which they negotiate the constant economic oppression and the resistance of sexual domination of different degrees inside and outside of Ashram due to the different; social position, literacy level, and age. For example, Pitiraji the oldest widow in the ashram remembers the joy and sorrow at the same time in her wedding ceremony and shares with Chuiya. Her memorization of childhood provides a stigmatized picture of a married woman’s life than that of a widowed woman. Through sharing and empathizing, Mehta brings out the resilience in the widow’s lives and individualizes them in their sexual and social domination. Rather than portraying the miseries of the widow, Mehta brings the nationalist discourses by focusing on the political changes over time.
Mehta challenges the hegemonic discourse in her movies by centralizing on the contemporary and historical contexts of Indian women domination in the colonial period which depicts the power relation of the colonial ideology of the British and the patriarchal and anti-colonial discourses which used women explicitly to consume their political and ideological interest thus affecting women’s lives. Thus, Mehta’s film highlights the oppression of women and the resistance makes us aware and understand that there is resistance every day.
